We're Boned!
by datalaughing
Summary: A TNG, BSG, SG1 crossover story. Complete.
1. Chapter 1: The Enterprise Incident

We're Boned!  
Part 1: The Enterprise Incident 

"Captain's log, stardate 52937.4, it's been almost a month since we first entered the area of space known as the briar patch. With the arrival of the USS Repulse and the USS Cumberland with personnel and supplies, including a new warp core for the _Enterprise_, we are now free to continue our mission to the Gorn system confident that the Baku will not be the target of further improper action on the part of the Sona or the Federation."

The captain of the USS Enterprise-E tapped a control to end his log and leaned back in his chair. He turned to glance out his ready room window but immediately turned back. As much as Jean-Luc Picard had enjoyed spending time with the Baku, and Anij in particular, the site of the gas clouds that made up the briar patch was beginning to irritate him. The planet's restorative effects had left Picard and the rest of his crew feeling younger and more energetic than ever. The problem was that Picard and his crew were explorers. The youthful energy and enthusiasm that had drawn the captain to the stars in his youth had returned in force, but the briar patch was keeping his ship confined.

Like Prometheus Picard saw his ship, and by extension himself, chained, unable to move. The captain, his crew, and even the _Enterprise_, with its new warp core, were newly energized and ready to get back to what they did best. Still, the briar patch restrained them all. Now, on the two-day trip out of the patch, the captain no longer even had Anij to keep his mind off of his ship's static disposition. The delay had become maddening.

Finally Picard couldn't take it anymore. As he had done many times over the last two days he strolled out of his ready room and back onto the bridge where, at least, he felt in control of things. On the bridge of his ship at least he felt like he was doing something.

Commander Riker vacated the command chair when he saw the captain come onto the bridge. Picard noticed as he came onto the deck that Data was at his ops station and Worf was at tactical. Whenever Worf came aboard the _Enterprise_ he was in the habit of taking a shift at tactical as well as manning the station during more tense encounters. Picard didn't object. He had yet to find a permanent replacement for Worf at the station since he had transferred to Deep Space Nine while the rest of the crew was awaiting the completion of the new _Enterprise_. No one else could do the job quite as well Worf had, and when they had still been in the throes of the Dominion war the officers who had been good at it had quickly recieved promotions and moved on. They were going to have to drop Worf off at Starbase 27 en route to the Gorn system.

"Helm," Picard said as he sat down in the command chair, "how long until we're clear of the briar patch?"

"25 minutes, sir." The young ensign responded. "We should begin to see starscape about┘ now."

Just as he predicted the stars began to peek through the murky swirling gasses of the briar patch.

"And they've never looked so beautiful." William T. Riker said from his position beside Picard.

"Agreed, Number One." Picard said. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think we've been absent from them long enough, don't you?" Picard smiled and his first officer nodded his agreement.

After giving his bridge crew a moment to admire the stars after nearly a month of looking out and seeing nothing but deadly brown and yellow gas Picard decided that it was time to get back to business, as it were. "Mr. Data," he said, "what exactly is the current situation in the Gorn system? Has our delay caused any serious problems?"

The android spun his ops chair around to face the captain. "It appears, sir, that"

"Captain!" Worf called out, interrupting the android second-officer. "Sensors are picking up some kind of distortion emanating from the briar patch ahead and to starboard."

"Analysis, Mr. Data." Picard ordered.

Data turned his chair back towards his ops console and began inputting commands very rapidly, not as rapidly as he was capable of, of course. Data could interact with the computer console almost faster than the human eye could follow, when it was necessary, but he often found that it made his human crewmates uncomfortable. So he reserved that for occasions when speed was especially important.

"Inconclusive, Captain." Data responded after a moment. "The briar patch is interfering with our sensor readings. We will be able to get a clearer reading in a few moments when the distortion has cleared the sensor interference. However, it does appear to be heading towards us."

On the cusp of cutting the bonds that restrained his powerful starship, Captain Picard was in no mood to take unnecessary chances. "Shields up, Mr. Worf." The captain ordered.

"Shields up." Worf confirmed.

"Mr. Data, I want an analysis of the distortion as soon as possible. Mr. Peters," the captain said, now addressing the young ensign with the red uniform stripes at the helm, "increase speed to full impulse. I want this ship out of the briar patch as soon as possible."

"Captain," Peters responded, instinctively, "if we go to full impulse it could damage the impulse manifolds."

"I am well aware of that, ensign. Full impulse now."

Duly chided Peters tapped out the command to send the ship full impulse. "Aye, sir, full impulse."

"Geordi is not going to be happy. He just got those things working again." Riker commented wryly.

"That just shows what happens when I let you take the ship out, Number One." Picard responded. A little playful banter between the two officers was just another side effect of their extended stay on and in orbit of the Baku planet. "Mr. Data?"

"Still inconclusive, Captain."

"The distortion still hasn't cleared the interference?" Riker asked.

"It has, Commander." Data responded. "However, the distortion seems to appear and disappear in rapid succession. It is never present long enough for our sensors to scan it completely enough to draw any conclusions."

"Are we still in its path, Commander?" Picard asked his science officer.

"We have moved out of the path that it was initially on."

"Initially?" Riker asked, afraid that he knew the answer already.

"Yes, sir." Data replied. "The distortion appears to be following us."

"Of course it is." Riker said, a little frustration peeking through his poker face. 

"Helm," Picard asked, "ETA to normal space."

"Three minutes, Captain." Peters responded. Increasing speed to full impulse had shaved a considerable amount of time off of their trip.

"Distortion is gaining on us, Captain." Worf announced from behind him. "Time to intercept, approximately three minutes."

"Cutting it kind of close." Riker commented cautiously.

"Let's hope that _we_ cut _it_ close and not the other way around, Number One."

The next two and a half minutes seemed to go by painfully slowly and in complete silence. Finally Riker broke the silence, "Are we going to make it, Mr. Data?"

"Unknown, sir." Data replied. "The distortion's movement is erratic."

Picard spoke, "Helm, lay in any course. Engage at warp five as soon as we clear the briar patch."

"Aye, sir, programming course and speed."

Silence reigned for another few seconds.

"Impact in 4 seconds." Data announced suddenly.

"We're clear!" Worf bellowed a second later.

"Engaging warp drive." Ensign Peters declared. The bridge crew was running together like clockwork.

Just as Peters tapped the control the entire ship was rocked by a huge impact and the bridge turned sideways. An incredibly bright flash was followed by complete blackness and complete stillness.

"Status report!" Picard called out, already knowing that it was probably futile. The emergency lights hadn't even activated, indicating that there was no power getting to any system. Instead of Prometheus his ship had suddenly become more akin to a quadriplegic, completely unfettered, yet still unable to do anything.

As if to confirm his thoughts Picard heard a few fruitless taps coming from consoles around the bridge. Eventually someone had to be the one to state the obvious. "Power to bridge stations appears to have failed." Data said matter-of-factly.

As if to spite the artificial life form the lights chose that moment to come back on, and all of the consoles came back online.

"Status report." Picard commanded again. This time the result was better but only slightly.

"Shields and weapons are inoperative." Worf proclaimed.

"Sensors are down." Data added.

"The helm isn't responding." Peters finished.

Picard tapped his combadge, "Bridge to engineering." A short buzz quickly followed the beep of the combadge.

"Communications are also inoperative." Data stated.

"Thank you, Mr. Data." Picard replied, somewhat sardonically.

"Do we have anything that _is_ operative?" Riker asked with exasperation.

"Life support appears to be operational, Commander." Data answered helpfully.

"Well, thank heaven for small favors." Riker responded.

Suddenly Geordi LaForge's voice could be heard, "Engineering to Bridge."

Picard tapped his communicator, "Go ahead, Commander."

"Captain," LaForge began over the communicator, "we've got shipboard communications back online, but that's about it for a while. Whatever that thing did to us it left everything a big mess down here. We hope to have the sensors operational within a couple of hours, but the weapons and the shields are going to take a bit longer."

"What about the engines?" The captain asked.

"That's the strangest thing, Captain. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the engines. All of our monitors indicate that they're working perfectly. The new warp core is humming away down here. We just can't get the engines to accept any commands. It's like they're not listening. I have no idea what's wrong. So I can't give you an ETA on when it will be repaired."

"Understood, Commander. Make the sensors your priority. We need to figure out exactly what happened to us and where we are."

"Aye, sir. LaForge out."

For the first time since coming onto the bridge the captain got out of his command chair. The crew was then treated to the familiar site of the captain pacing the bridge. It was something he did when he was thinking. He turned to stare at the viewscreen. It was completely blank. Without information from the sensors the viewscreen had nothing to display. After a few moments' contemplation he turned to his first officer. "What do you think, Number One?"

"I don't like it, Captain. We're defenseless, and we're blind. Even if we haven't sustained serious damage a stray Sona ship could come into the area and pick us off." The after a second he added, "That is, if we're even still near the briar patch."

"Quite right." The captain agreed. He'd considered that possibility as well. In his tenure as captain he'd encountered quite a few anomalies, and as often as not they tossed his ship to and fro across the galaxy, "especially considering that we were entering warp at the time of the impact."

Picard paced back and forth for a few more moments. "Mr. Data," he said finally, "is there any way to determine our position without the use of the sensors?"

Data tapped a few commands into his console. After getting a readout he turned to his captain, "Stellar cartography is currently in the process of attempting to triangulate our position using the stars visible from different parts of the ship." Picard was proud. His crew had anticipated his orders and was already on the job. "However," Data continued, "without the help of the sensors, recording and analyzing the data could take more than an hour. I believe, sir, that I could be of assistance."

"By all means, Data. Go. I want a briefing in one hour."

"Yes, sir." With that Data got up and headed for the turbolift. A lieutenant who no one had noticed until that moment quickly rose from his station and took Data's place at ops without a word.

Picard returned to his command chair and tugged on his uniform tunic before sitting back down.

"What now, sir?" Riker asked.

"Now we wait, and hope that we get back on our feet before something unfriendly arrives."

An hour later the senior staff, minus LaForge who was on the other side of the ship still trying to get the sensors back online, was gathered in the conference room. Data was standing next to a screen at one end of the room. He activated the screen which showed a small Sovereign-class ship which represented the _Enterprise_. Stars began to appear around the ship in small groups until the tiny ship was at the center of a large group of stars. Data pointed to the ship in the middle. "The _Enterprise_ is currently here."

"And where exactly is 'here,' Data?" The question came from the _Enterprise_'s red-haired doctor, Beverly Crusher.

"'Here,'" Data said, "is the briar patch."

A wave of confused looks passed over the table, a few looking toward the window where the stars were twinkling away. "Shouldn't that have been pretty easy to figure out, Data?" Commander Riker asked. "I mean, ideally, if you're in the briar patch you walk up to a window, look out, and you come up with the conclusion pretty quickly."

"You misunderstand, Commander." Data responded, pointing to the grid being displayed on the screen. "As you can see we were able to gather stellar data from every side of the ship. There are no gas clouds of any remarkable size anywhere in our vicinity."

"But I thought you said we were in the briar patch." For the first time Counselor Troi spoke. The half-Betazoid was sitting next to Commander Riker. The two had gotten much closer since the mission to the Baku planet had begun.

"It would be more correct to say that the position that the _Enterprise_ is currently occupying falls within the briar patch. The nebula itself is not present."

This explanation drew surprised looks from around the table. The briar patch had been a huge nebula, covering a massive amount of space including at least one entire solar system. For it to have suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving the Enterprise behind seemed incredible to say the least.

"Are you certain of our position Mr. Data?" Picard asked.

"Yes, Captain." Data replied. "And given our position before we encountered the disruption, an erroneous conclusion leading to this particular result seems unlikely."

Picard had to agree. If the stellar cartography team _had_ made a mistake in their calculations, which was unlikely given Data's history, it would be a stunning coincidence for them to mistakenly place the _Enterprise_ so near to where it was before the incident. "Ok," Picard concluded finally, "we're in the briar patch, but the briar patch isn't. Theories?"

Worf was the first to speak up. "Could the disruption we encountered have destroyed the briar patch?"

"Unlikely." Data concluded. "When we first detected the distortion it was moving through the gasses that compose the briar patch. It did not seem to be affecting them at the time."

"Do you have a theory, Mr. Data?" The captain asked.

"Given the erratic nature of the anomaly's movement it is possible that it was moving in more than just our three-dimensional space. It could have been moving along another axis which we were unable to detect, and that it propelled the _Enterprise_ along that same axis."

"Like time?" Troi volunteered.

"Again, unlikely. While it is possible that we have been pushed into a time before the briar patch existed or after some unknown event caused it to disappear, stellar drift should be evident because of the time difference. It is not. In essence, the stars are all where they are supposed to be, even if the briar patch is not."

"Then what other axis were you thinking Data?" Crusher asked.

"I believe that the disturbance we encountered may have multiple realities, alternate universes." Worf was visibly shaken by the pronouncement. Nodding to Worf Data continued. "We have encountered similar phenomena before."

"Indeed." Worf growled.

Data began to explain. "For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. I believe the distortion we encountered may have been moving through different quantum realities. If that is the case the impact could have pushed the ship into one of these alternate realities."

"How does that explain the disappearance of the briar patch?" Troi asked.

"With an infinite number of differing realities, it is possible that there are realities in which the confluence of cosmic forces necessary to create something as large and complex as the briar patch never occurred or that some event occurred in the intervening millennia to cause it to disappear."

"Mr. Data," Picard said, "how can we determine if this is the case? More importantly, how can we reverse the process?"

"After reviewing the report that Lieutenant Commander Worf filed following his initial encounter with a quantum fissure on stardate 47391 I have determined that if we have indeed traveled to a different quantum reality we will be able to confirm it by simply examining any matter native to this universe. According to the report matter native to each universe resonates with a different quantum frequency."

"Well," Riker interjected, "that shouldn't be too difficult."

"However, reversing the effect could prove more complex. We have no idea where the anomaly went after hitting the _Enterprise_. We do not even know if the anomaly continued to exist in this universe at all. Even if we were able to locate it again, there is no way to know if a second encounter would reverse the effect of the first."

"Very well." The captain concluded. "Mr. Data, I want you to work on this problem. Find out if we are in a different reality. If that is the case, find us a way back."

"I will do my best, Captain."

"Everyone else, our first priority is repairing the ship. We may be stuck here, wherever here is, for quite some time, and there is no way to know what we might encounter."

"So," Riker joked, "just another day at the office."

"So it would appear, Number One."

Picard got up and walked over to the screen that Data was still standing next to. After one final look at the display, which still showed a miniature _Enterprise_ surrounded by stars he tapped the com panel. "Picard to LaForge, status report."

Geordi LaForge was in the ancillary sensor data monitoring room. It was one of the least desirous posts on the ship. Usually it was staffed by some new ensign who hadn't the seniority to move to a more important post yet. Since all of the sensor data was processed by the computer, the person assigned to this post spent most of his or her time watching the readouts go by, acting as a human backup in case something went wrong with the computer. As if to compensate for the boredom of the post, or maybe so the technician could make sure what he was seeing actually correlated with something in reality, the room was also equipped with a large window along one wall. LaForge thought this would probably be a really interesting place to watch a battle from.

Geordi heard the captain call him and looked up at one of the monitors to see an image of the conference room with the entire senior staff assembled, looking back at him. "Status report." The captain's voice said.

"Things are really a mess down here, sir." LaForge reported. "But I'm hoping to have the local sensors back online within the next few minutes. Long range sensors are going to take a little bit longer."

"Excellent Commander, keep me apprised."

Before the connection broke a flash of light drew the chief engineer's attention back to the window. "Captain!" he said quickly.

Picard turned back to the screen and noticed that LaForge's expression had changed quickly from hopeful to surprised. "Yes, Commander?"

The conference room window was on the opposite side of the ship from the one LaForge was looking out of. So they weren't seeing what he was. "Captain," he said again, this time more slowly. "I think we have a new problem." Another flash of light. "Or two."

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 1. If you have any feedback positive or negative email it to or post it in my journal on RvB. 


	2. Chapter 2: Odd Things, Good People

We're Boned! We're Boned!  
Part 2: Why do odd things happen to good people? 

Colonel Jack O'Neill was on his way to a briefing for the upcoming mission of Stargate Command's flagship team, SG-1. After more than six years of whooshing around the galaxy and fighting aliens with way too much attitude and way too little fashion sense he was starting to get tired of the constant weirdness. He knew that things were crazy when he found himself remembering how much more relaxing it was running black ops into places like China as opposed to places like Mars. What he'd had to do that morning hadn't made things any less weird.

Major Samantha Carter came up behind him. "Hi, sir." She said cheerily.

"Carter." He acknowledged.

"So how'd it go?" She asked eagerly.

"How'd what go?"

"You took, uh, 'little Jack' to his first day of high school today, right?"

"Oh yeah." Recently Jack had awakened to the sight of his entire team standing around his bed staring at him. Come to find out that he had spent the preceding seven days being probed or something by a little gray guy who didn't wear pants and talked funny. Ok, so none of the Asgard wore pants. It was still weird. Not only that but while he was gone Loki (Where did these guys come up with these names? How come he never met little gray men named Bill or something? Or Steve, Steve was a decent alien name.) had created a copy of him, but because he was dumber than the average Asgard the copy ended up being 15 years old. So now there was a 15 year old walking around somewhere knowing everything he knew just because some Asgard screw-up had wanted to get a look at Jack's super advanced human brain. Super advanced, Jack scoffed. Fat lot of good that had ever done him, he couldn't even do the crossword puzzle in the morning paper, not for lack of trying. "A 6-letter word for a digit." What did that even mean?

"So," Carter prodded again, "how'd it go?"

"It went fine. Kid's gonna be alright."

"'Little Jack'" she said again. "We really need to think of something better to call him."

"No, _we_ don't." Jack responded firmly. "I don't plan on seeing him again."

"You're not going to keep in contact?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"It would be," Jack searched for the right word.

"Weird?" She replied, knowingly.

"I was thinking weird." He confirmed.

"Well, I am."

"You go right ahead."

"I liked him. He's a good kid. Besides," she grinned wryly, "I kind of like being taller than you."

O'Neill was getting a little fed up. "He is _not_ me!"

"He's got the same DNA." She replied.

"Well, that doesn't make him me. I am me. He's┘ someone else. He's a lot┘" once again Jack was searching for just the right thing.

"Shorter?" Carter suggested.

"Exactly!" He confirmed, "and whiny. I am definitely not that whiny."

"Who's whiny?" While they'd been standing in the hall talking Dr. Daniel Jackson, Ph.D. Archeology, had walked up, on his way to the same briefing.

"Little Jack" Carter responded.

"Oh, that's right," Daniel said, "you took him to school today. How'd that go?"

"I am done talking about this." Jack said. Then he turned the corner and walked into the conference room where Teal'c was already sitting patiently, waiting for the briefing to start.

The other two weren't quite done, "The colonel doesn't want to see him again." Sam told Daniel as the two of them walked in to take their seats as well.

"Oh yeah?" Jackson asked. "Why not, Jack? I think you two would have a lot in common."

"I said we're done talking about this, ok?' Jack replied, beginning to get truly irritated.

"Fine, fine." Daniel said finally. Then he turned to Sam. "They're both so stubborn."

"I know." She replied, grinning.

Before the conversation could go any farther the base's commanding officer General Hammond came in. "Ok, SG-1," the general said, "here's your next mission." He handed each of the four team members a manila folder with all the details about their upcoming mission. "MALP recon," he began, "leads us to believe that the stargate on P3X-725 is in some sort of storage facility or laboratory."

The team members pulled photos from their folders. The photos showed a dark, cluttered room. There were lots of things sitting on the floor or on tables, most of them were covered with sheets.

"Inhabited?" Daniel asked.

"From the information the MALP has sent us it appears that no one has entered the room containing the stargate in years. If the planet is still inhabited the inhabitants have stayed away from this room." Hammond explained.

"So they just left all this crap lying around?" O'Neill asked, flipping through the pictures rather absently.

"It would appear so." Teal'c responded.

"Your mission," Hammond said, trying to get the briefing back on track, "is to go in and examine what's there. Try to see what's outside, if you can. Ideally the planet has been deserted and we can take possession of anything useful they have stored there."

"So, like a garage sale." Jack concluded.

"More like grave robbing." Daniel said coldly.

Hammond ignored both comments. "If there is useful technology in this room it's just sitting there not doing anyone any good. If you find anything useful and there _are_ still inhabitants in the area then maybe they'll trade with us."

Daniel seemed only slightly appeased by that statement. Something about walking on to a dead planet and digging through the stuff they left behind for anything valuable brought up an image of vultures in his mind, but he had to admit that the general was right. There might be something there that they could use. If so, why leave it gathering dust? It wasn't like they hadn't found a bunch of other useful stuff just lying around on distant planets, collecting dust.

"And team," Hammond continued, "for once, can you please try not to activate any alien doomsday devices or brain switching machines or inter-dimensional transporters while you're there? The MALP didn't pick up any active power sources, but that's never stopped you before."

Jack smiled. "We'll see what we can do, general." He stood up from his chair. "But no promises."

Hammond sighed. "You leave at 0700 tomorrow, SG-1. Dismissed." With that he got up and walked back into his office.

"Well," Colonel O'Neill said as he stuffed the material back in the folder and tossed it on the table, "Carter, looks like you may have some new toys to play with soon." With that he walked out of the room.

"Goody." Carter said, with a mix of sarcasm and anticipation. Then she left the room as well, taking her briefing information with her.

Daniel turned to look at Teal'c. "Looks like we've got the day off."

"Indeed."

A moment of silence passed between them before Daniel decided to push forward with the conversation. "So┘ pizza and a movie?"

"What film, Daniel Jackson?" The two of them rose and started walking toward the door together.

"Oh!" Daniel said, remembering something, "I just bought a new DVD. Have you seen Old School?"

As they walked through the doorway, "I have not."

"I think you'll like it."

**The Next Morning**

The team gathered in the gateroom at 0700 the next morning, decked out in their black fatigues. All of them including Teal'c were armed with P-90s for this mission. Teal'c had forgone his usual staff or large Earth weapon in deference to the crowded, confined space they were gating into. The last thing they needed was a huge weapon accidentally brushing up against something that would suddenly blow them all up. As usual they were also each wearing a zat sidearm.

"Excited, Carter?" Colonel O'Neill asked.

"You bet, sir."

Suddenly the stargate started to spin, and Walter's voice came over the speaker. "Beginning dialing sequence."

"Another day, another dollar," Jack said with a smile.

"Chevron one, encoded." The speaker announced.

"Another galaxy to save." Daniel added.

"Chevron two encoded."

"We do seem to do that a lot, don't we?" Jack noted. "Save galaxies and things, I mean."

"Chevron three encoded."

"Perhaps we should request additional monetary compensation." Teal'c said.

"Chevron four encoded." The gate continued to spin, steam rising off of it as it went through the dialing process to connect to P3X-725. The team didn't even take notice of the incredible sight in front of them, so common-place was it by this time.

"A raise?" Carter asked.

"Chevron five, encoded."

"Now there's an idea." Daniel said.

"Chevron six, encoded."

Before Jack could respond to Teal'c's suggestion General Hammond's voice came over the speaker and the team turned around. "Good luck, SG-1."

"Chevron seven, locked." With that their stargate made a connection, via a wormhole, to another stargate halfway across the galaxy with an explosive release of energy akin to a huge sideways splash.

Jack gave the general a small two-fingered salute, "Adios, general."

Hammond just rolled his eyes and walked away as Colonel O'Neill turned to walk up the ramp and join the rest of his team. Then they stepped through the undulating event horizon and were gone.

Almost instantly the team stepped out of an almost identical stargate. This one, however, was on the planet they had designated P3X-725, and as far as they could tell at the moment the planet was composed of one very dark room. The air was stale and a little unpleasant which seemed to confirm the fact that no one had been in the room for quite some time.

Jack turned on his flashlight and looked around. "Maybe we can just get them to give us like frequent flyer miles for this stuff." He said, harkening back to the conversation that had begun in the gateroom. "Carter, get the MALP light running."

MALP stood for "Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe." About four and a half feet tall and 7 feet long the MALP was the tool that the SGC (Stargate Command) sent to planets ahead of them through the stargate to make sure there wasn't anything dangerous on the other side. To this end it was equipped with sensors, cameras, radio equipment, even little arms that could reach out and manipulate objects if necessary. More than anything it resembled a miniature tank, except that in place of a gun it had a large robotic arm on top. It also happened to be equipped with a light for situations like this one.

Carter, using her flashlight, walked over to the MALP and flipped the switch to activate the light. The area directly in front of the stargate was suddenly illuminated, but farther out most of the room was still shadowy and somewhat foreboding with objects of all sizes cloaked in sheets like so many ghosts waiting off in the darkness.

They could also see the remains of a large sheet lying behind the stargate. Carter shined here flashlight back there. "It must have been over the stargate when we activated it." When the stargate activated and released its large splash of energy anything in the path of the splash or the "kawhoosh" atomized instantly.

The only other unsheeted item immediately visible was the DHD, or dial home device. This device, which they no longer had on Earth, was the usual companion to the stargate. It allowed people to dial the gate. An SG team rarely went through the gate before the MALP first confirmed that there was a DHD present to allow them to get back. In this case the MALP had used its robotic arm to remove the sheet that had covered the device in order to confirm its presence.

"Ok, team," Jack prompted, "let's see what we've got." He pulled the sheet off of the nearest thing to him, which turned out to be a large unmarked crate. Then he added, "but try not to┘ you know, _touch_ anything┘ too much."

"Riight." Daniel replied, walking off in another direction.

"Yes, sir." Carter confirmed, pulling the sheet off of another object, which appeared to be a large, unadorned rock.

Jack tried to open the crate, and the lid lifted easily. "Whoa," he said when he saw the contents, "seen one of these before." Carter left her rock to look at his find. It was one of the large spherical communication devices that their long-time enemy the Goa'uld often used.

"Can't hurt to have another one of those." Carter said cheerily before walking off toward a laboratory table in one of the darker corners of the room near where Daniel was standing.

Teal'c had managed to find what appeared to be the only entrance to the room. He examined it for a few moments with his flashlight before testing his considerable strength against it. The door refused to budge. "I do not believe that we will be able to exit this room, O'Neill." He concluded after a few tries.

"Well," Jack said, "I guess it's an alien technology buffet. No one here to complain, so if we find anything cool, we ship it back to the SGC. No one will ever even notice."

Daniel's countenance revealed that he still was not entirely comfortable with the idea, but he didn't say anything and Jack didn't push him.

Carter lifted a small device from the lab table and shined her flashlight on it. Somehow it looked really familiar to her, but she just couldn't place it at first. Then, suddenly, it hit her. "Colonel, come here!" She said eagerly.

Teal'c and Jack both weaved their way through the sheets and boxes over to where Sam had made her discovery. "Look at this." She said, holding the small device up proudly.

"Looks familiar." Jack said. "┘ What is it?"

"If I'm right," Carter began slowly. She was looking around for something nearby that was about the right size and shape. Then she spotted it, not 5 yards away just next to where Daniel seemed to be intently studying the wall for some reason. She quickly made her way over to the sheeted device with Jack and Teal'c following in her wake, and she tugged the sheet off and let it fall. "Aha!" She proclaimed triumphantly.

"Whoah." Jack said. Teal'c looked on with interest but said nothing.

Underneath the sheet was something that they had all seen before. They'd even brought one back to Earth at one point, but the government had eventually been forced to destroy it, for various reasons. Now they were standing face to face with a second one, looking as mysterious as its predecessor, another quantum mirror.

Carter manipulated a control on the small device she'd found, the mirror's control unit. It flickered to life, revealing another room exactly like the one they were currently standing in. Except the room in the mirror was filled with what appeared to be scientists, right down to the lab coats which, in their case, were green for some reason. She manipulated the control again and the mirror showed darkness, presumably in the same room in the same condition that they'd found it in the darkness here. "There we are." Sam concluded.

The quantum mirror was a bridge across realities. You could use the control device to tune it to an infinite number of different quantum realities where the same mirror also existed. Then, by touching the mirror you were instantly transported to the reality to which you had it tuned. The first quantum mirror had given them the information necessary to save Earth from a Goa'uld invasion. It had also caused them a lot of trouble. That's why the government had chosen to destroy it.

"Ok," Jack said slowly. "Well, let's definitely not touch _this_ thing." The other two nodded their assent.

Just a couple of feet away Daniel Jackson was standing, completely oblivious to the discovery that his team had just made. While sweeping the room with the beam from his flashlight he'd caught sight of what he had initially perceived to be some kind of faint writing on the wall. He'd gone up to examine it, but the darkness, the dust, and what may have, at one time, been a coat of paint were obscuring it. He slowly began wiping and scraping the wall, trying to determine what it was he was seeing.

It turned out not to be writing at all but a design that seemed to be actually carved into the wall. On closer examination he realized that it stretched as far as he could see. Maybe, he thought, it was the material that the wall was made out of. It looked somehow familiar to him.

Then he realized what it was that he was looking at and the realization caused him to jump backwards several feet very suddenly. Unfortunately the spot that he chose to leap backwards into was already occupied, by Teal'c. The sudden unexpected jolt caused the large Jaffa to fall forward into Colonel O'Neill who never stood a chance of keeping his balance when confronted with the mass of Teal'c and Daniel combined. Jack fell into Carter who didn't notice what was happening until it was too late, so engrossed was she in examining the mirror and its control device.

Carter tumbled forward toward the mirror, and thinking quickly tried her hardest not to touch the deceptively reflective surface of the quantum mirror. She reached for the stone border around the edge of the mirror's surface. The mirror itself wasn't nearly stable enough to support all the weight suddenly pressing against it. It too began to topple backwards. Sam knew she was going to fall directly on top of the mirror and there was nothing she could do to stop it anymore. The mirror hit the ground, and SG-1 heard it shatter. "That's odd." Sam thought. "I didn't even know that could happen."

A sudden white flash and the room that represented all Earth knew about the planet designated P3X-725 found itself once more devoid of life. The feeble light coming from the MALP still illuminated the room as best it could, but SG-1 was gone.

The four members of SG-1 were still in a dark room, but this one felt much smaller. Jack's flashlight no longer seemed to be working. "Where are we?" He asked the others who he could feel crumpled on the floor around him.

"Dark room." He heard Daniel reply.

"Thank you, Daniel." The colonel responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "But that really doesn't give a whole lot of new information with which to answer my question." He said it again, this time louder for emphasis. "Where are we?!"

Then he heard a muffled voice coming from somewhere to his right. "What was that noise?" The voice demanded.

Then a door opened flooding their tiny space with light, and Jack's heart sank as he heard a sound that he had, through no fault of his own (at least as far as he was concerned), become all too familiar with over the years, guns cocking all around him.

Then Daniel took it upon himself to answer Jack's previous question again. "In trouble."

"D'oh."

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 2. If you have any feedback positive or negative email it to or post it in my journal on RvB. 


	3. Chapter 3: New Friends, Rude Neighbors

We're Boned! We're Boned!  
Part 3: New Friends and Rude Neighbors 

Ten seconds after Geordi had informed the senior staff that two unfamiliar ships had just appeared off the _Enterprise_'s port, they were all manning their bridge stations.

"Mr. Data," Picard began, "can we get a visual?"

"We cannot, Captain. Local sensors are still non-functional."

The captain tapped his combadge, "Mr. LaForge, I need to know what we're up against."

Geordi's voice came back across through the tiny insignia on the captain's chest. "We're working on it, captain. Give me about five minutes."

"You have two."

One thing that Starfleet engineers had to get used to was that no matter how long they told their captain something was going to take the captain would always demand it faster. It was one of the fundamental laws of physics, right up there with gravity or the uncertainty principle.

The legendary engineer Montgomery Scott had once given LaForge some advice that, he regretted to say, he had found it necessary to utilize on multiple occasions. If the captain always cut your timetable in half you had to start making it twice as long. Still, two minutes was cutting it rather close.

While the chief engineer was trying to finish his repairs the bridge crew was desperately trying to do something with their crippled ship.

"Mr. Worf," Picard said, "can you hail the ships?"

"Opening hailing frequencies." Worf confirmed. Then, few seconds later, "No response."

Data turned his chair to face his captain again. "Captain, if this truly is an alternate quantum reality there is no way to be sure that they even have communications technology compatible with our own."

Once again Data had opened himself up for the universe to stick it to him. "Captain," Worf interrupted from the tactical console, "I believe we are being hailed."

"You believe?" Riker asked.

"It is on an┘ unusual radio frequency, sir." Worf responded. "I will attempt to match frequencies."

"Very well," Picard said. "Onscreen." The captain would be happy to finally have something on the viewscreen. The blank screen dominating the front of the bridge was somewhat unsettling, but it was not to be.

"Audio only, sir." Worf informed the captain. Then he patched the signal through.

The voice that came through the bridge speakers was deep and throaty but had the definite ring of authority behind it. "Unidentified vessel," the voice said, "you will state your intentions or be fired upon."

Not much for small talk is he? Picard thought. That was fine. The captain wasn't in the mood for small talk either. Standing up, more out of habit than necessity, as his image was not being transmitted to the strangers, Picard responded. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship _Enterprise_. We are explorers on a peaceful mission. We do not wish to fight. However, we will defend ourselves."

The captain had considered telling the new arrival that his ship had been damaged and they were in need of assistance, to show that the _Enterprise_ was not a threat to them, but if the strangers were hostile there was no reason to tell them that his ship was completely defenseless. If they couldn't tell that the _Enterprise_ couldn't defend itself, Picard was not going to tell them.

"Federation?" The voice asked, less threatening now.

Picard glanced at Riker. It wasn't the response he had expected. Riker shrugged. It seemed like a reasonable question under the circumstances. "The United Federation of Planets." Picard explained. "It's a multi-planetary alliance composed of hundreds of different planets and species."

The gruff voice now sounded more curious than aggressive. "Species?" It asked in a tone that almost seemed like amazement. "What different species are represented on your ship?" The question gave the impression of being the first of a million that the voice from the other ship had in mind. For the moment Picard was willing to answer them, in the hopes that it would buy enough time to get some of his ship's systems back online, also in the interest of making new allies in what might be a completely new reality.

"Well," Picard responded, beginning a short liturgy of races, "there Humans, Vulcans, Klingons." At that point he motioned towards Worf, again out of habit. The person on the other end of the line couldn't see. Before he could go on down the list the voice interrupted again.

"Human?" It asked.

Picard was taken aback again. The question had startled him. "Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I am human." He said. A million different ideas started to occur to him. Was it possible that in this reality humans were hated and despised or even enslaved, like in the mirror universe which he'd read about in reports but never encountered himself? The voice that he was speaking to could be any race with any number of prejudices that he couldn't even imagine. Perhaps, he thought, allowing the conversation to take this particular direction had been a mistake.

"What planet are you from, Captain?" The voice asked, a sense of urgency now creeping into it.

"Earth." Picard replied. He'd come this far. They were going to have to push onward and deal with the consequences.

"Earth." The voice repeated. It was hard to tell what exactly the word meant to the owner of the mysterious voice, but it had obviously made an impact. After a moment it began again. "Captain, I think we need to speak face to face. Does your ship have a landing bay that I could take a ship into?"

Picard was surprised at the turn things had taken, but he was more than open to finding a new ally. "Of course." He replied. "But if you would like to come aboard, we have an easier way. If you're willing to trust us give us a few minutes and we will transport you to our ship." Fortunately the transporters were not one of the systems that had been knocked out, but if LaForge didn't get the sensors online they had no way to target the trasporter.

"Transport?" The voice said warily, but he'd made his decision already. "Fine." It said. "I'm standing by."

"Oh," Picard said, "if we're going to be speaking in person I think it would be useful for me to have your name as well."

"Of course." The voice replied. "This is Admiral William Adama, of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica."

Unlike the senior staff onboard the _Enterprise_, the men and women on Galactica's command deck hadn't been privy to both sides of the conversation. They had however heard enough that they could take a good guess at how the conversation had gone. Lieutenant Karl Agathon, call sign, "Helo" approached the admiral.

Nearly two months had passed since _Galactica, Pegasus_ and the remainder of the sparsely crewed colonial fleet had been forced to jump from orbit of New Caprica to avoid destruction at the hands of the Cylon fleet. 19 ships had managed to jump away before the Cylon fleet had a chance to open fire.

All 19 ships were running with skeleton crews, including the two Battlestars. In a move that struck Admiral Adama as eerily similar to the actions of his predecessor Admiral Cain, Adama had been forced to encourage people from the 17 civilian ships into service aboard to two Battlestars to fill out the crew compliments.

For two weeks the fleet of 19 ships, most of which were completely defenseless, had run again, staying just one step ahead of a small force of Cylons that pursued them, while the majority stayed in orbit around New Caprica. Finally Admiral Adama and his son, Commander Lee Adama, commander of the _Pegasus_ had engaged the Cylons briefly allowing the civilian ships to escape and hide in a place they hoped would be safe while the Cylons pursued the two capital ships. It had been a risky move, but it seemed to work. There was no indication that the Cylons had taken any notice of the unarmed civilian ships.

So for almost a month and a half the two Battlestars had used hit and run tactics to strike back at their Cylon pursuers, always staying just out of reach. The two ships had just completed a marginally successful strike at the Cylon force and jumped away when they encountered something new. A ship hanging in space the likes of which no one had ever seen. It was only about 650 meters long, half the size of one of the Battlestars, but the power reading coming off of the ship belied its small stature. In truth, the admiral was relieved that they wouldn't be putting these strangers to the test. He wasn't completely sure what the result would be.

However, the revelation that this strange ship was somehow related to Earth and crewed by some of his brethren from that fabled 13th colony seemed too good to be true. And alien species as well, he hadn't even begun to consider the ramifications that that might have. It was all just too much at the moment.

"Don't go, sir." Helo said. Since Adama had insisted that his second in command, Commander Saul Tigh go down to New Caprica, Agathon had become his XO. Adama trusted him and his instincts.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant?"

"Don't go, sir. It could be a Cylon trap."

In the two months that they had undergone this trial by fire Adama and Helo had become pretty close. So when the admiral spoke he leaned in closely and spoke to him like a friend. "Listen, Karl, if the Cylons knew where we were going to jump to they would have a couple of Basestars waiting here to blow us out of the sky. That ship," he pointed to the silhouette on their DRADIS radar system, "is unlike anything we've ever seen. It's definitely nothing that the Cylons have. You know it, and so do I."

"But, sir,"

Adama didn't let him finish. "Besides, imagine if what they're saying is true. This could be what we've been searching for since we left the twelve colonies, a link to Earth. More importantly, they could be a powerful new ally against the Cylons. We have to try." Helo's expression showed that he knew the admiral was right. He still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of the admiral going alone into a completely unknown situation. "At least let me go with you, Admiral."

Adama wasn't sure that it was a good idea to leave _Galactica_ without its commanding officer or its XO, especially considering that the Cylons would almost certainly be coming after them in short order. However the ship was already short by quite a few bodies. Two more wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference. Lee could command things from the _Pegasus_ without any trouble. Besides, he knew that Helo wasn't going to let up until he agreed. "Fine." He said finally.

Lee Adama, call sign "Apollo," had doubtless been monitoring the situation, but Adama made sure that orders were conveyed to his son, apprising him on exactly what was going to be happening. Just in case this was some sort of Cylon trick the admiral wanted Lee to be prepared.

"Admiral" Adama heard a small voice. He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

"Yes, I'm here, Captain."

"We're ready to transport you, Admiral. Are you prepared."

"I am." He said, but then quickly added, "I'd like to bring my executive officer with me."

"That's fine, Admiral. Is he standing near you?"

"Yes, he's right next to me."

"Ok, that's fine. We have you both. Prepare for transport."

Adama nodded to Agathon who shifted nervously and rested his hand reassuringly on his sidearm. The rest of the people on the command deck of the Battlestar looked on, unsure of what to expect. Suddenly jaws dropped around the room as a blue glow enveloped the two officers. A moment later they were gone.

LaForge had managed to get the sensors repaired just in time. When Picard, Riker, and Data arrived in the transporter room everything was ready. Now that the sensors were working Picard was very interested in the capabilities of the two ships that the _Enterprise_ was now floating in the vicinity of, but that would have to wait. "Energize," the captain told Data, who was operating the transporter console once he'd made the final confirmation with Admiral Adama.

The telltale whine preceded columns of blue light appearing on two of the transporter pads, but they paused before resolving themselves completely. "Captain," Data said, "I am detecting a weapon in the beam.

Picard wasn't surprised. He wouldn't want to beam into a potentially dangerous situation without some sort of defense either. He could not, however, allow two strangers to walk around his ship armed. "Can you deactivate it, Mr. Data?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Then do it, but make sure that you can reactivate it when they leave. We wouldn't want our potential new allies thinking we've tried to sabotage their equipment."

"Yes, captain." Data tapped a few controls on the console. Then when he seemed satisfied that the weapon was no longer a threat he continued. "Completing transport." The two columns of light resolved themselves into the shape of two human beings.

Picard evaluated the men who appeared before him. The admiral looked to be in his late 50s or early 60s by Picard's reckoning. He wore a large moustache on a face worn with time and lined with the cares and concerns of his command. He wore glasses which struck Picard at first. The captain was not accustomed to seeing people wearing glasses. In the Federation the need for corrective lenses had been almost completely eliminated. Behind the small pieces of glass Picard saw eyes that were intelligent and authoritative, yet there seemed to be an immense sadness there as well. The admiral had obviously seen quite a bit in his career.

The admiral's executive officer, on the other hand, was something else entirely, young, energetic, and muscular. His thoroughly military look was one that Picard would associate with a Starfleet marine. He also seemed rather nervous, which could be expected, given the circumstances. His hand was resting on his sidearm, which Picard would let him keep now that it was not a threat to his crew. It would probably give the admiral and his XO a feeling of safety while onboard.

"Admiral," Picard greeted _Galactica_'s commander cordially, extending his hand in friendship.

"Captain," Adama acknowledged, taking the captain's proffered hand and shaking it warmly. "This is my second in command, Lieutenant Agathon." He said, indicating the other man.

"Lieutenant," Picard extended his hand to the younger officer as well, then motioned to his two officers. "This is my first officer, Commander Riker." He motioned to the bearded man standing beside him and Riker greeted both of the arrivals. "And this is Lieutenant Commander Data." Data had come around from behind the transporter console to greet their guests.

Data also shook hands with both of the officers from the Battlestar, but the experience was a bit different. Adama and Agathon were initially a bit uncertain as they extended their hands towards Data. The android's unnaturally pale skin and gold eyes were rather off-putting for someone who had never encountered an alien species. Picard had intentionally done this, thinking that Data would be a good first step into the new universe that he was exposing his guests to. As unusual as Data might seem to the newcomers, it was much easier to adapt to his appearance as a first exposure than to that of, say, Worf. Given the reaction that the officers had to Data, they were probably not quite ready to meet their first Klingon.

With the introductions done Picard motioned towards the door, "Shall we move this to the conference room?"

The suggestion seemed to be accepted by the two guests. So Riker took the initiative and led the way through the door and toward the nearest turbolift. The other four trailed behind, an awkward silence falling over the group. After a moment the admiral tried to break the awkward moment and satisfy his curiosity at the same time, "So, Lieutenant Commander, Data," he began. "I take it you are from one of the other races that make up this Federation that the captain mentioned."

"In a way, Admiral. I am an android."

"Android?" Adama was not familiar with the term.

"An artificial life form designed to appear humanoid."

This stopped the two _Galactica_ officers in their tracks. Helo's hand once again instinctively went to his sidearm. Picard and Riker turned with some concern while Data observed their actions with some curiosity.

After only a moment Admiral Adama regained his composure and gave Helo a look forcing him to do the same, with considerably more effort. "I apologize, Captain." The admiral said sincerely. "We've had some┘ trouble with artificial life forms. I'm sure that you will understand once we've had a chance to discuss what has brought us both here."

Picard seemed less than sure, but he accepted Adama's apology and moved to continue toward the turbolift door. "I'm sure, Admiral. This way, please." The procession continued.

But Helo couldn't let it go. "So how many 'androids' are there serving on this ship?" He asked, managing, impressively to keep his tone of voice curious and free of any disdain.

"I am the only one." Data replied. "I am the only one of my kind in existence as far as we know."

This seemed incredibly comforting to the two visiting officers, which might have offended Data had he chosen to activate his emotion chip.

Picard's communicator suddenly gave a little chirp. "LaForge to Picard." The two men from _Galactica_ looked around quickly, but couldn't detect the source of the voice they'd heard.

Riker couldn't suppress a small grin at their confusion as Picard tapped his combadge to respond. "Go ahead, commander." At first Helo thought that the captain was addressing Riker, but what was happening became obvious a moment later when the same voice could be heard again, speaking to the captain.

"Captain, the engines just came back online."

"Good work, commander." Picard responded.

"It wasn't us, sir. They just came back on their own, but now that we don't have to reroute power around the engines to other vital systems I should have weapons and shields back for you in an hour."

Picard glanced at the admiral who seemed to take the information in without a reaction. The cat was out of the bag now. The captain was less than comfortable with major systems that seemed to go on and offline of their own volition, but what he really needed now was to get his ship back in working order again. He decided not to look a gift horse or warp core in the mouth just yet. "Acknowledged, Commander, as soon as you can. Picard out." The rest of the trip was completed by the five men in silence.

When the party entered the conference room an attractive woman with a mane of raven hair and eyes that seemed almost inhumanly dark was already there waiting for them. Picard made the final introduction as they all took their seats. "This is Deanna Troi, our ship's counselor."

Adama reached out his hand and gave the woman a warm smile, "It is a pleasure to meet you, _Counselor_ Troi, is it?" Troi gave the admiral a small nod of confirmation and a large smile of greeting as she shook his hand. "I am Admiral Adama, and this is my XO Lieutenant Agathon." Agathon wasn't quite as taken with the counselor as his commander was, but he greeted her with a friendly smile and a handshake as well.

"Ok, Captain," Adama said, turning to Picard, "shall we get down to business here?"

Over the next half hour the representatives of the two ships exchanged stories. Picard began by explaining how the Enterprise had ended up in that sector of space and what they suspected had happened to them. He asked the admiral if he would allow Data to scan him. The admiral seemed a little put off at first. Picard wasn't sure if it was because of the request or the fact that Data would be the one doing it, but after less than a moment of hesitation the admiral agreed.

Data produced a small device. He explained that it was called a tricorder and told them exactly what its function was before opening it and beginning to point it in the admiral's direction.

"Wait!" Helo said. "Use it on me instead." The _Enterprise_ crew was surprised by the outburst, but the plea was understandable and showed a lot of dedication and loyalty to his commanding officer.

Adama gave his XO a reassuring look. "If Captain Picard's crew wanted to hurt us, they could have done it a long time ago, Helo. I'll be fine." Then he turned to Data, "Go ahead, Commander."

A few flashes of light and a couple of beeping noises came across the table from the small device. It was over in just a few seconds. Picard looked at his second officer expectantly. "These readings confirm my suspicions, captain." The android said. "The admiral has a different quantum resonance frequency. We are not from the same universe."

The seriousness of the pronouncement could be seen on every face of the _Enterprise_ crew. To their surprise even Admiral Adama seemed disappointed. "This means," he began, "that you're not from the Earth that we're searching for."

"We are not." Data confirmed matter-of-factly. "However, there is a high probability that the Earth that you are searching for occupies the same spatial coordinates as its counterpart in our universe. If that is the case, we may be able to provide you with the exact location."

The two visitors seemed to perk up at the prospect. Adama's eyes showed a glimmer of hope which as quickly as it had come turned back to sadness. "I've got something else I'd like to ask of you, Captain."

Then Adama began his story. He explained about the Cylons and how they had attacked the 12 colonies. He told Picard and his officers how _Galactica_ had managed to survive the destruction of the colonies and gone on to protect what was left of the human population while they searched for the legendary 13th colony, Earth. He told them about the new president, leaving out certain unpleasant details, and the discovery of the planet that would become New Caprica. He explained about the arrival of the cylon fleet and the escape of _Galactica, Pegasus_ and the rest of the colonial fleet that was still spaceworthy. Then he explained about what he and his crew had been doing for the last two months and what they were doing when they came across the _Enterprise_. The listeners sat, riveted by his tail of heroism and woe.

When he was done he turned and addressed Picard directly. "Captain, the Cylons are coming. I know your weapons systems are down." Picard couldn't deny it. LaForge still didn't have the phasers and torpedoes back online. Noting that the captain didn't choose to dispute the statement, Adama continued, "Normally _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ would jump away before they had a chance to attack, but we will wait here and protect you from them for as long as we can."

Picard sensed a condition behind the admiral's seemingly magnanimous pledge. "What is it that you want in return for this protection, Admiral Adama?"

"We want your help, Captain. Our readings show how powerful your ship is. The _Enterprise_ could be what we need to free our people trapped on New Caprica from the Cylons."

Riker chimed in at this point. "So what you want is for the _Enterprise_ to go in and help you attack an entire fleet of enemy ships positioned around this planet?"

"They're trying to exterminate our entire race, commander. That means you as well, if they get the opportunity."

Picard was unsure of what to do. The admiral's story had certainly made him sympathetic, and, if it was true, he could believe that the Cylons would readily lump him and his crew in with the rest of humanity in this universe. Could he really allow his own species, however separated by some quirks of fate from the species that he recognized, to be annihilated by this apparently genocidal race of robots? On the other hand, could he, in good conscience, involve the _Enterprise_ in a war that had nothing to do with him and his crew?

"Admiral," the captain said, "do you mind if my first officer and I discuss your offer?"

"Of course not, Captain, but don't take too long. The Cylons will almost certainly arrive any time now."

Picard rose from his seat and motioned for Riker to follow him. They walked out of the conference room and onto the bridge, leaving Troi and Data to keep their visitors company.

"What do you think, Number One?"

"It's a tough call, Captain, especially considering that if we accept the Admiral's offer we have no idea what we'll be up against."

Picard had a thought. "Well, let's find out." He walked over to the Worf manning the tactical console. The viewscreen in front of them now displayed the two Battlestars, looming in space, twice the size of Picard's ship. "Tactical analysis, Mr. Worf." Then he turned to Riker. "If the Admiral thinks that he can defend the _Enterprise_ successfully than it's reasonable to assume that he has fire power at his disposal similar to that which he anticipates facing."

Riker couldn't find fault with that logic. So he waited for the report from Worf. "No discernible shield generators, Captain. The ships seem to be defended by heavily armored hull plating, but that would not be a match for the _Enterprise_'s phasers. Weapons systems composed of projectile cannons and missiles. I am also detecting several bays filled with what appear to be fighters of some sort, also armed with projectile weapons, and" Worf did a double take at the console.

"And what, Commander?" Riker prompted.

"Nuclear ordinance, sir."

"They're still using nuclear weapons." Riker said, somewhat let down.

"It would appear so, Number One."

"Then the _Enterprise_ might really be able to win their war, sir."

"The thought had occurred to me." Picard seemed even more concerned by this than if they were facing superior fire power, but the safety of his ship and crew was still his first concern. "If the Cylons are similarly equipped we'll be an easy target without our shields."

"Captain," Riker said, confidence in his voice now that he knew what they were potentially facing, "these people need our help." Picard knew that too. "And I know no one wants to face this right now, but there is a distinct chance that we could be stuck in this universe for a long time. If that is the case, shouldn't we make friends with our new neighbors?"

"These Cylons don't sound like the good neighbor type."

"Exactly, sir. That only leaves us one option for new allies."

Picard had to acknowledge that Riker made a convincing point. If they couldn't find a way home it would be nice to have allies in this universe, but he still wasn't sure. Something about the situation still seemed wrong to him. Suddenly his time ran out.

"Captain!" Worf called out. Then a flash and a ship even larger than the Battlestars appeared on the viewscreen. The ship's enormous body was composed of two primary hulls, connected together at the middle, each tapering into three large spikes. Curiously it looked to Picard like some demented pinwheel. "It just appeared, sir." Worf proclaimed. "One moment there was empty space, then an energy build up, and suddenly that enormous craft was there." Apparently faster than light technology in this universe was somewhat different from what the _Enterprise_ crew was used to.

"Do you think it's the Cylons, sir?" Riker asked.

"I'd say that's a good bet, Number One." Then to Worf, "red alert!" Worf tapped the control and the red alert klaxons began to blare and the red emergency lights flashed on. Picard tapped his combadge. "Picard to LaForge, I need shields, commander."

LaForge's voice came back, "It's still going to be a few minutes, Captain, but we have warp speed if you need it."

Adama appeared on the bridge, enticed by the alert status suddenly gripping the starship. Then he saw the ship on the screen. Ignoring the fact that Picard still had both he and his first officer onboard his ship (Adama could tell that Picard wouldn't hold them against their will), he confronted the captain. "Time's up, Captain. That's a Cylon Basestar. You can't negotiate with them. You can only kill them or be killed by them. So, do we fight as allies or do we run as strangers?"

There were Picard's choices, laid out before him, a new ally and a war not of his making or run and hope for the best.

Adama was glad that for once it wasn't him who had to make the tough decision.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 3. If you have any feedback positive or negative email it to or post it in my journal on RvB. 


	4. Chapter 4: If You're Busy

We're Boned!  
Part 4: If You're Busy, We Can Come Back Later 

"I still say we kill them right now!" The bearded man maintained.

Once SG-1 had been discovered, in what was apparently a mostly empty storage closet, they'd been stripped of their weapons and gear. They were used to that. They'd also been told to be quiet and not move. They were used to that as well. They'd been assigned a guard, who currently had a weapon trained them, also not an unusual occurrence for Stargate Command's frontline team. What was entirely new was that their captors had left them exactly where they'd been found and proceeded to treat them to a show, of sorts.

Apparently the closet was the closest thing that this ragtag bunch had to a prison cell, it certainly was cramped and uncomfortable enough for one, Jack O'Neill thought to himself. The show was two people, apparently the leaders of the group, arguing about what to do with the colonel and his team.

"We _have_ to kill them." The bearded man repeated. "They're obviously Cylon spies."

His opponent was a blonde woman, very energetic and not overly patient. "Oh, _obviously_." She mimicked. "Yes, they're _obviously_ Cylon spies." She lifted an item off of the table, which still had cards scattered on it from the game that they'd been playing prior to the sudden, unexpected interruption. "Think about it, Chief," Tyrol, the bearded man, hadn't been a chief for nearly a year, but old habits die hard, "have you ever seen Cylon agents that looked like them?" She waved her hand dismissively in their direction.

Despite the fact that he had no idea what they were talking about, Jack felt that he should be insulted by the comment, if only to try to insert himself into the conversation. "Hey!" He protested.

"Shut up!" The two leaders said in unison before going back to their own disagreement. SG-1's guard just continued to watch them unwaveringly, his weapon trained on the four prisoners.

The blonde woman continued her argument, "And have you ever seen a Cylon carrying a weapon like this?" She fired the zat at the stone wall. A bolt of blue energy flew out and impacted the wall, causing no discernible damage.

"That's your proof?!" Tyrol demanded. "Some crazy costumes and a weird gun that doesn't do anything and suddenly they must be ok. Is that all it takes to infiltrate the resistance? If so I think I joined the wrong side."

"Listen, chief." She was calmer now, pleading with him to listen. "It's just what my gut tells me. They're something else."

Tyrol was in no mood for calm. "Oh, your gut, Kara? Well, that's a whole different story." The sarcasm was almost tangible. "You'll excuse me if I'm not going to risk my life for your gut feeling. You'll excuse me if I'm not going to risk Cally, risk _my son_ because your frakking gut says so!"

When the Cylons invaded New Caprica a lot of things had happened very quickly. No one had known what the Cylons were going to do or if the human race would even survive another day, but Kara Thrace-Anders, call sign "Starbuck" in her viper pilot days, knew that whatever happened she would fight them to her last breath.

President Baltar had made an announcement that New Caprica had officially surrendered to the Cylon invaders. He'd assured everyone that the Cylons had no intention of hurting anyone. They wanted what was best for humanity, he said, and if everyone just cooperated no one would be hurt. Starbuck, like most humans, didn't believe it for a second. She decided then and there to start the New Caprica resistance.

Word quickly got to her that one of the Cylons was looking for her. He'd already been to her tent. It was one of the models that they knew as Leoben Conoy. She knew that he didn't want her for anything she'd enjoy. She had to get out of New Caprica City.

Under the cover of darkness Kara Thrace-Anders had left the city that she'd called home for nearly a year. Her husband, Samuel Anders, was sick, maybe even dying of pneumonia, and she hadn't been able to go to him, not even to say goodbye. She knew it was exactly what they'd expect. It was eating her up inside.

She'd taken with her a small number of people that she trusted, people who couldn't or wouldn't stay in New Caprica city. These people were going to form the foundation of the New Caprica resistance. Among the people fleeing the city were Chief Galen Tyrol, president of the New Caprica Worker's Union and his wife Cally. She'd been eight months pregnant at the time. Tyrol refused to let her stay in the city. There was no telling what the Cylons had planned.

Tyrol had led the refugees to a series of caves that he knew several miles from town. During the colony's first mining expeditions some of the workers had found the caves and turned them into a makeshift apartment building. They'd offered more protection from the elements than the tents that most of the colony still lived in. It made the perfect resistance base. There were still improvised beds, doors, even tables and chairs. It was almost impossible to see from a distance, and there was only one entrance. So it was easy to guard.

The journey had taken its toll on Cally. The chief and Demetrius, the man currently holding a gun on SG-1 and a veteran of the original Caprica resistance, had been forced to carry her for most of the final mile of the trip. Once they'd reached their destination she was bed-ridden for over a week, finally giving birth to a baby boy, Galen Tyrol, Jr., two weeks prematurely.

The child was doing as well as could be expected. The mother not as well, but she seemed to be improving, and the father had only two things on his mind, protecting his wife and protecting his child. It had thus far blinded him to most everything else since little Galen's arrival.

So far the New Caprica resistance had accomplished very little. They'd built up a network of informants inside New Caprica city, mostly survivors from the Caprica resistance, people who weren't afraid of fighting the Cylon menace. Information slowly made its way to the resistance base, preparing them to begin a series of guerilla-style attacks on the occupying forces.

However, the information they were receiving had been surprising. To everyone's astonishment the Cylons seemed to be keeping their word, so far. No one had been hurt. There were rumors that the invading army had begun construction of permanent housing facilities for the conquered human population. Starbuck had even gotten word that her husband, Anders, was receiving medical attention for his pneumonia.

Nevertheless Starbuck wanted to begin a campaign of precise attacks on the Cylon infrastructure. Tyrol, on the other hand, was convinced that they should wait and see what happened. He argued that there might be no need to attack the Cylons if it was only going to bring about discovery and deadly retaliation for the resistance. He urged collecting more information and coming up with a different way to use it, possibly by contacting any of the colonial fleet that might have survived the attack.

The fleet, Starbuck thought derisively. The night they'd abandoned New Caprica she'd even taken the risk of stealing some communications equipment in case they could contact _Galactica_ or if the admiral tried to contact them. The equipment sat in the corner of the main room, unused. They didn't even have any way of knowing whether any of the fleet had survived the Cylon attack. In truth, it seemed unlikely, and Tyrol had insisted that they shouldn't use the radio and risk giving away their position to the Cylons unless they had something useful to report on the off chance that they did manage to contact _Galactica_ or _Pegasus_.

So the radio sat there collecting dust. As far as Kara was concerned the entire resistance movement was just sitting there, collecting dust. It wasn't what she'd had in mind. She wanted to accomplish something. She wanted to feel like she was doing something to save humanity. What she didn't want was to just hide in a cave and wait to be rescued.

But the resistance was polarized. Tyrol had a lot of support for his position. Many of the resistance members had also belonged to the Worker's Union. Not to mention that no one wanted to rock the boat now that it looked like the Cylons were being friendly conquerors. People were starting to reconsider the views that they'd help about their robotic enemy for so long. Starbuck didn't want to let that happen. She knew the old view was the right one. She'd stared those soulless bastards right in the face and she'd experienced the hospitality of a Cylon- controlled planet. She wasn't interested in reliving that.

Starbuck and Tyrol had been butting heads for a month, and the arrival of four mysterious strangers had finally brought everything to a head. Kara was sure that the newcomers weren't Cylons. She didn't even know how she was sure, but she was. Galen, on the other hand, as usual, didn't want to take any chances.

"So we're just going to start murdering people now because we think they might be Cylons?" Starbuck asked. "And what happens next week when you accuse me of being a Cylon? Do I get executed too?"

"You know that's not what I want, Kara. We just can't take the chance that they're Cylons. They know where our base is now."

"Oh, yeah," Starbuck said, "our big secret useless resistance base. You mean they know what hole we've gone and hidden in until the Cylons leave on their own."

Tyrol refused to be baited. "Fine," he said, "if they're not spies, why did they sneak in here and hide in a closet?"

"A better question is how," Demetrius noted, speaking for the first time.

"That is a better question." Starbuck acknowledged.

As much as he was enjoying the show Jack felt like he needed to try talking to them again. He cleared his throat loudly. "If I could say something."

He fully expected to be censured again. Instead the two resistance leaders looked at him for a second or two. "Make it good." Starbuck said finally.

"Now we're getting somewhere." The colonel said. He made a move to stand, but a look from Demetrius told him he'd be better off staying on the ground. "Well, ok." He said, accepting the unspoken recommendation. He addressed Starbuck and Tyrol again. "I don't know who these cyclone guys are that you're so scared of."

"Cylon." Daniel corrected.

"Whatever. The point is, we're not them. I don't know who the Cyclons are. I've never met one. I'm not especially interested in meeting one, and apparently," he motioned toward Starbuck, recounting her comment from earlier, "I don't even look like one."

"Cylons can look like anyone." Tyrol noted sourly. O'Neill wasn't convincing him.

"Well, good for them." Jack said. "I'm stuck with the one face myself. It's got a few miles on it, but it gets me where I need to go. The message I'm trying to convey here is that we're not them."

"And why should we believe you?" This time it was Starbuck's question. She didn't think they were Cylons, but if they could provide her with an alternate explanation it would go a long way towards helping her case.

"One simple question." Jack said.

"And what's that?"

"How did we get in here?" Jack had been listening to the conversation and had come up with the one question that the two both seemed to be avoiding, mainly because neither had an explanation.

"'How did you get in here'?" The former chief repeated. He had to admit to himself that he had no answer, not even a theory. They'd all been in the room playing cards for over an hour, and during that time they'd opened the storage closet at least twice. There had definitely been no people or Cylons in it.

"Exactly." O'Neill said. "If we're Pylons, how did we get in here? You've obviously got," he inclined his head toward Demetrius, "very effective security on this place. So unless these enemies of yours have some sort of magical transportation power, how could we have gotten in here┘ if we were them?"

The resistance leaders considered this question for a moment. Carter leaned in to whisper something to the colonel. "Sir, what happens if they do have transportation technology." It definitely wouldn't be the weirdest thing that had happened so far that day.

"Then we're pretty screwed." O'Neill whispered back. At this point he was out of options.

"Ok," Tyrol said, "I give up. How did you get into our base?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Jack replied, sounding as cheerful as he could, under the circumstances. "We're explorers from a planet called Earth." The pronouncement seemed to have an unexpected effect on the entire room. "I see you've heard of it."

"We have." Starbuck confirmed. "Go on."

"So like I was saying. We're explorers from Earth, and we were checking out this planet called P3X-725. Ever been there?" They stared at him blankly. "Small place." He prompted. "Kind of dusty." They continued staring. "I'm not surprised. Anyway, we're looking around and we find this quantum mirror thingy. I can't tell you exactly how it works, although Carter here probably could if you're interested, but I do know that when you touch it it takes you to alternate universes. They're places that are like home but a little different. Like in one I was a general, and in a couple I think I died. The point is that when you touch the thing it transports you to the same place but in another universe, and you're touching the same mirror. So Daniel here," at this point in the liturgy Jack elbowed Daniel in the ribs, "decides to fall all over everyone and we end up falling on top of the mirror and into your closet here. So you see, it's all really just been a big misunderstanding."

The resistance members looked on, awestruck at the incredible recitation they'd just heard. If Kara had been hoping for an explanation that she could use to strengthen her case for not killing the strangers, she hadn't gotten it except that maybe she could claim that they were too insane to be Cylon spies.

"So what you're saying," Tyrol began, trying to fit his head around what he'd just heard, "is that you're from Earth, but you were on a different planet."

"Right." Daniel confirmed.

"And that you got here by touching a magic mirror?"

"Right." Jack affirmed.

"Well," Daniel began.

"Well," Jack said, exchanging a glance with Daniel and picking up his addendum, "not like a 'mirror mirror on the wall,' magic mirror, but that's the basic idea."

Tyrol had no idea what the prisoner was talking about, but he was still too amazed at the story that they were expecting him to swallow. He couldn't believe that a Cylon agent would try a cover story that ridiculous. He began to consider that maybe they weren't Cylons after all, but if that was the case, who were they, and where had they come from?

"Can I say something?" Carter had asked the question from her position behind Colonel O'Neill.

"Please do." Daniel said. He could see that things were not going well. Sam might have an idea.

"We are not your enemy. We came here by accident, and if you'd give us the chance we'd like nothing better than to go home and get out of your way."

"Oh, I'm sure you would." Tyrol agreed. "I know you'd love to go home and tell your toaster friends exactly where we are. That's not going to happen. I won't let it."

Jack looked at Daniel. "Toaster?" He mouthed. Jackson just shrugged.

"Speaking of which," Starbuck said, finding a loophole in the Chief's plan, "if they _are_ Cylons,"

"Which we're not!" Jack threw in. A look from Demetrius let him know that it would be best if he didn't interrupt again.

"If they _are_ Cylons," she continued, "then we can't kill them. If we do they'll just be reincarnated at Cylon HQ and tell the others exactly where we are."

"Believe me," Daniel said from the ground a few feet away, "if you kill us we won't be getting reincarnated anywhere." Jack elbowed him again. "So," Daniel added, in response to Jack's prodding, "So, we'd really rather you didn't┘ kill us, that is."

"How about you, big guy?" Demetrius was addressing Teal'c. "Everyone else has had their say. You got something you want to throw in?" He motioned to the large Jaffa with his weapon.

"I have nothing to say." Teal'c replied coolly.

"Well," Demetrius commented, leaning back in his chair, "at least one of them is smart."

"Hey!" Daniel and Sam objected in unison.

"Hey!" Jack added a second later."

The two resistance leaders ignored them. "Ok," Tyrol said, seeing Starbuck's point, "we can't kill them. Then what do we do?"

Before anyone could suggest an alternative someone came through the door that led to the outside. Outside the door was a long tunnel leading up to the cave entrance. Sara came through. She was a young woman, younger than Starbuck even, but she'd been a viper pilot aboard Galactica for a good while and was as tough as anyone. She was one of the two resistance members currently taking a shift watching the cave entrance.

"Simon is here." She told the occupants of the room. Suddenly everything else dropped. Simon was one of the main suppliers of information to the resistance. He collected it from their network of agents in the city and then took on the all-important yet most dangerous step of actually delivering the news, himself. A veteran of the Caprica resistance himself, he knew the risk he was taking, and did it willingly, even cheerfully.

"Get him in here." Starbuck said. For once she and Tyrol were in agreement. It had been almost a week since they'd gotten news from New Caprica City. That wasn't unusual, but it was nerve-wracking.

The man entered just behind Sara. Then the young woman turned around to head back to her post, closing the door behind her. Simon was a short man and very muscular. Despite his fearlessness when thrown into dangerous situations, or maybe because of it, he usually wore a perpetually nervous look. This time, though, he looked on the verge of desperation.

"What's the matter, Simon?" Tyrol asked, offering the man a chair.

Simon didn't waste any time getting to the matter at hand. "They're taking people!" He exclaimed.

"The Cylons?" Starbuck asked.

"Yes!" He said with exasperation. The thoughts going through his head were obviously weighing on him heavily. "It started three days ago. They began taking people. No one noticed at first, but after the first night word began to spread. At first we thought that they were reopening the breeding farms." This struck Starbuck hard. She'd been in one of the Cylon farms where they were attempting to create a human-Cylon hybrid. She didn't want anyone else to have to go through it. "But they're taking everyone, men, women, children, almost indiscriminately." Starbuck was relieved that it didn't look like the farms were coming back, but this new news was even more unsettling. Why would the Cylons be taking people at random?

"No one has seen where they're going?" Tyrol asked.

"They take them into the citadel." Simon answered. "And no one ever comes back out. There must be at least 300 missing already."

"Slow down a second." Starbuck said. "'The citadel?'"

"Yeah." Simon answered. Then he looked up at the two resistance leaders and realized from the looks on their faces that they had no idea what he was talking about. "I thought for sure you would have heard about the citadel by now. It's been up for nearly six days."

"We haven't." Tyrol said. "So explain it to us."

"Ok, you remember where _Colonial One_ was?" They nodded. "Well, it's gone." A shocked look ran around the room. Even Demetrius who was still holding his weapon on the prisoner's showed his surprise. SG-1, not having any idea what was being discussed just watched the whole thing play out, looking for their opportunity to run. "We all turned in one night at curfew," Simon continued, the Cylons had established a curfew for the human population, "and when we got up the next morning Colonial 1 was gone and in it's place was this giant building. No one knows how the toasters put it up so fast, but there it was."

"So this citadel is where they've been taking all the people they abduct?"

"Exactly. People think all of it must have something to do with that woman."

"What woman?" Tyrol asked.

"The one who showed up in the weird ship nearly a week ago."

"Wait, what?!" Starbuck exclaimed. She was really tired of having no idea what was going on.

Simon looked back and forth between their two faces again. "Wow," he said, "you guys really have been out of the loop. Nearly a week ago this woman landed in a ship like no one had ever seen before, and she walked right in to Colonial One where the Cylon leadership is camped out. That's when all this weirdness started."

"What did she look like?" Tyrol asked.

Simon had relaxed slightly since his arrival. He leaned back in his chair. "She was a blonde." He said. Fortunately her landing had attracted a crowd and he'd gotten there in time to get a good look at her before she went inside the ship. "Great body." He added. "She was wearing this crazy black suit, like nothing I've ever seen before, and she really looked like the kind of girl you didn't want to mess with."

Simon was looking around the room, and for the first time since he'd entered he noticed Demetrius near the open closet. When he'd arrived Demetrius had been blocking the view of what was inside, and Simon had been too agitated to notice. Now he could see clearly, and what he saw surprised him. He stood up to get a good look at the four people apparently being held prisoner in resistance headquarters. "What's going on here?" He asked.

"Oh," Starbuck replied. In all the excitement she'd forgotten about the prisoners. "We found these four in that closet, no idea where they came from. The chief thinks-"

"Oh my gods!" Simon exclaimed, looking at the four members of SG-1.

"What is it?!" Tyrol jumped out of the seat he'd taken. "What's wrong?"

"It's her!" His hand extended out, pointing at Major Samantha Carter. "It's the woman I told you about!"

At the exact same moment three people said "What?!" Starbuck said it because she couldn't believe it. They'd captured the woman with the strange spaceship that Simon had described. Carter said it because she was relatively sure that she would have remembered landing in a spaceship and having a conversation with a Cylon, whatever that was. O'Neill said it because he had absolutely no idea what was going on.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 4. If you have any feedback positive or negative, leave me a review. 


	5. Chapter 5: Check, Please!

We're Boned!  
Part 5: Check, Please! 

"Tactical analysis, Mr. Worf." Picard ordered.

Worf worked the controls for the sensors. A moment later, "Primary weapons appear to be missiles, Captain, armed with conventional and nuclear warheads. I am also detecting several hundred fighter-size vessels inside. Without our shields we are completely vulnerable to their attacks."

"Thank you, Commander." Picard didn't need to be reminded of how defenseless his ship was. If the _Enterprise_'s shields and weapons were functional the Cylon ship would be no match for them. Without them his ship was easy prey for the larger vessel and her fleet of fighters. Picard made his decision. "We accept your proposition, Admiral." He said, turning to Adama, who was anxiously awaiting the decision that he knew was coming.

"Excellent." Adama said. He knew that Picard had no choice, but that hadn't made the wait any less nerve-wracking, not with a Basestar staring him in the face. He was surprised that it wasn't unleashing swarms of Raiders already. "I need to get back to _Galactica._"

"Of course," Picard replied. "Mr. Data, escort the admiral back to the transporter room."

Data motioned towards the turbolift, and the two officers from _Galactica_ moved to follow. Suddenly Adama paused and turned back toward Picard. "I'll leave Lieutenant Agathon here," he said, "both as a show of good faith and to help you with any further information you need about our situation or our enemy." Adama glanced at the Basestar on the viewscreen one more time. Then he turned to Helo who seemed somewhat put off by the unexpected declaration. "Help them however you can, Helo. They're our allies now."

"But, sir-" Helo began.

"Look at it this way," Adama said, "you're our first ambassador to Earth. You couldn't ask for a more important position. Besides," here he lowered his voice somewhat, despite the fact that the _Enterprise_ officers watching them could undoubtedly still hear what was said, "if _Galactica_ doesn't make it through this I need someone that I can trust _here_ to make sure that our new friends hold up their end of our agreement." With that the admiral turned and walked into the turbolift, with Data following close behind.

A reassuring look from Adama as the turbolift doors shut did little to comfort Karl Agathon. _Make sure they hold up their end_ he thought to himself derisively. He glanced at Worf. _Yeah, that'll be real easy._

The Basestar hung in space, observing the impromptu gathering of three vessels in this usually empty plot of space. Two of them were recognized instantly. Every Cylon knew what one of the human Battlestars looked like. The two ships were also exactly what the Cylons had expected to find when they jumped into the area. The other ship, however, was completely unfamiliar. The Cylon vessel paused for a few moments, examining the strange craft. Adama had thought the Basestar's inaction unusual, and he was right. The Basestar was unsure what to make of the situation. So it paused.

Often the Basestar might have begun its attack by bombarding the enemy ships with nuclear warheads before deploying its Raiders. This time, however, the decision was made that the complete destruction of the new ship without a chance to study it (or its battle-damaged remains even) more closely was a bad idea. So, just as Admiral Adama arrived in the transporter room to beam back to his ship, several minutes of inaction ended when the Basestar began releasing Raiders to attack the other ships.

On the _Enterprise_'s viewscreen the crew watched as the smaller ships began to pour out of the massive Basestar. At Picard's invitation Helo had seated himself in the seat customarily occupied by counselor Troi. Troi was seated at the vacant engineering station at the back of the bridge with her chair turned to watch the viewscreen with the rest of the bridge crew.

"The larger ship is deploying fighters, Captain." Worf said.

"Those are Cylon Raiders." Helo informed the bridge crew. "A single Basestar can carry hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. No one really knows."

"Mr. Worf." Picard prompted.

"We are detecting approximately eight hundred fighter craft within the Basestar, sir."

Helo glanced at the Klingon. "And now we do." He said to himself.

"The Cylons certainly must have a large compliment of fighter pilots on board their ships." Troi observed from her position at the rear of the bridge.

"No." Helo said. "These Raiders pilot themselves. Those ships are as alive as any Cylon, and they learn from experience, even death." In his recitation in the conference room, Admiral Adama had already explained how Cylons who were killed were able to transfer their consciousness and be resurrected. From Helo's statement it was apparent that the Raider's shared that rather useful feature.

"Death becomes a learning experience." The Admiral had said. It certainly was an interesting concept. However, Picard had no time to mull over the ramifications.

"Picard to LaForge." The Captain said, tapping his combadge. "Where are we on shields and weapons?"

The chief engineer's voice came back, "We're doing our best, Captain. I may be able to give you phasers in a few minutes, but torpedoes and shields are going to take longer."

"Commander," the Captain replied dourly, glancing back at the Raiders on the viewscreen, "we may not have a few minutes."

LaForge sighed to himself. They never did. "Understood, Captain. We'll do what we can. LaForge out."

Adama materialized in the middle of the command deck, surrounded by the same incandescent blue light that had ushered him away. The crew looked on in amazement. For a moment after the light had faded, leaving the Admiral in its wake, no one said a word.

Then the moment broke, and someone decided that they needed to get down to business. "Admiral," one of the crew said, "Pegasus Actual on Wireless."

Adama picked up the receiver. The Admiral's son, Commander Lee Adama, was on the other end. "That Basestar is beginning to deploy Raiders." The younger Adama said. The Admiral had picked up on that during his first moments back aboard his ship. "Should we jump?"

Under normal circumstances that was the course of action that the colonial fleet would take. These were not, however, normal circumstances. "No." The Admiral replied firmly. "Keep us between the Cylons and the _Enterprise_, and get the Vipers in the air."

"Admiral?"

"I've made an agreement with Captain Picard. We're going to protect that ship for as long as we can." There was a note of finality in his voice, and the Cylons weren't giving them time to discuss the situation anyway.

"Yes, sir." Commander Adama replied, cutting the connection. The Admiral could tell that his son wasn't happy about the orders, but he would still follow them.

Grant Apolinar, callsign, "Archer," was in the cockpit of his colonial Viper Mark VII, waiting for word on whether or not they were going to engage the Cylons. As soon as the Basestar had appeared the _Pegasus_ Viper pilots, those that were left, had scrambled and prepared for launch. The waiting seemed interminable.

In the last two months Archer had undergone training and trial by fire. Before that he'd been a civilian navigator on one of the ships in the fleet. Grant loved space. So when the opportunity had come along to settle on New Caprica he'd been one of the few who opted to stay with the ships in orbit.

A solitary man, with no one to worry about but himself, he'd initially been relieved when the fleet had jumped away from the Cylon's invasion of the new colony. He felt he'd made the right decision, and thus avoided whatever horrible things were happening to the thousands of colonists left behind on the planet. However, before long, Admiral Adama had needed "volunteers" to supplement his small (and shrinking) supply of Viper pilots. Grant had been of the right age and had some flight experience, which made him a perfect candidate. Since then, he had, through a strange series of events, become one of the more experienced Viper pilots in what remained of _Pegasus_' red squadron.

Archer had never gotten over the extreme nervousness before a battle, he often wondered if anyone ever did. It often got so bad that his hands shook uncontrollably, but as soon as he was out in space it always disappeared. Somehow, even amidst flying bullets, enemy ships, and the occasional explosion he felt somehow at peace in the vast soundless vacuum.

His hands were shaking now. He'd heard rumors about an alien ship, but that wasn't what concerned him. Almost every engagement he'd fought in so far had been a surprise attack on the Cylons, jump in, hit them, jump back out. Suddenly that wasn't the case, and it made him even more nervous. The waiting had to be the worst of it. Once he was out and in control of a ship he would have a purpose. Here there was no purpose, just waiting.

Then the word came. They were deploying. Within a few minutes Archer was in space, in control of his own destiny, as it were. If being in space relaxed him, the fleet of Cylon Raiders heading his direction had the opposite effect. The force that the colonials could mount against them suddenly seemed pitifully small. His orders came. All Viper pilots from both Battlestars were given the order to hold. They were to hold their ground against the onrushing storm of mechanical fury, and they were to protect the alien ship at all costs.

_So there really is an alien ship._ Archer thought to himself. He understood the importance of that revelation. It would change everything. If they could befriend the aliens their technology might even give them a chance at beating back the seemingly indomitable advance of the Cylon war machine. The logical part of his brain quickly squashed those hopes. If these aliens were that powerful they wouldn't need the paltry fleet of colonial Vipers to protect them from the Cylon ships.

Really, none of it mattered. He'd become accustomed to his role as Viper pilot. The officers sent the orders, and the pilots did the hard work. Every time they flew out fewer of his friends returned. The Viper pilot's duty was to do what he/she was told and, in all probability, to die in fire. Sitting on the flight deck this truth was nerve-wracking, but while he was flying his ship it was a fact of life, and his fate was in his own hands.

Archer began accelerating towards the oncoming Raiders. He looked for the best place to start. Spotting a group of three ships Archer altered his course and made right for them. Three Cylon Raiders were flying in a wedge formation. _They must be new at this,_ Archer thought to himself. Well, he'd teach them their lesson soon enough.

Soon his Viper and the three ships were speeding directly toward eachother. As soon as he was in range he opened fire on the lead Raider. They were already firing back. Trying to avoid the fire from three ships was hard enough, but he had a specific spot that he wanted to hit. So he weaved while training his fire on that spot. Then his fire found its mark.

Grant hit the lead ship on one of its wings. Suddenly out of control, it careened into one of the other Raiders, flying in the tightly knit formation. Both erupted, and then blinked out of existence. Before he could even acknowledge what had happened the third raider passed him on the left, just meters from a collision. "Woooo!" He let out a yell. Archer had never quite gotten over the excitement of victory or that of a near collision, and this had been both. He briefly considered turning back and pursuing the third Raider, but he decided against it. There was no need to risk firing in the direction of his own ships. He knew that he would have more targets than he'd like before the day was through.

"Those are our Vipers." Helo pointed to the screen. The two Battlestars had moved into position directly between the Basestar and the _Enterprise_, effectively blocking their view of most of the battle. However, they could still observe what happened on the fringes of the battle.

The Basestar hung there, motionless, surrounded by a cloud of Raiders ready to defend against any human ship that might be bold enough to mount an attack. The colonial ships, however were taking a defensive posture, remaining close to their capital ships and dealing with the oncoming enemy as they approached.

"We've been very short on pilots since we arrived at New Caprica." Helo continued. "Some of our best settled on the planet, trying to make a life that didn't involve war, for all the good it did them." Bitterness pervaded his statement. "Truth is, half of those pilots are just kids, hardly any time in the seat at all before they were thrown up against the Cylons."

Captain Picard took in Agathon's words. He watched and considered the people out there who he didn't know, living in a universe so different from his own, so hopeless. Yet they were fighting and dying to protect his ship and his crew. True, they expected quite a bit in return, but that didn't make their sacrifice any less noble in the Captain's eyes.

The fight had been going on for nearly fifteen minutes, and, to Picard's surprise, not a single Cylon ship had made it past the defense line that their new allies had erected. Not a single threat to the _Enterprise_ had presented itself. The Captain knew that it couldn't stay that way for long. The combined fighter fleet of the Battlestars, though dedicated, was hopelessly outnumbered by the, seemingly inexhaustible, supply of Cylon fighters.

Picard resisted the temptation to call his chief engineer again. He knew that LaForge and his people were working as quickly as they could, and there was no way Picard could accelerate their progress. He'd been forced to do nothing and wait before, and he'd always abhorred it. However, he found that it was eminently worse to sit and wait while every minute was bought with the blood of others.

"LaForge to Picard" the Captain's communicator chirped.

"Go ahead" he replied, after giving it a tap.

"The phasers are back online, Captain." The chief engineer proclaimed proudly.

"Excellent, Commander. What about shields?"

"Shields will take maybe another hour, Captain."

"Understood. Picard out." He turned to his first officer. "Hopefully there will be something left to shield."

"Do you mean?"

"Yes, Number One." The Captain replied. "We're going in. I won't watch others die to protect us for one minute longer."

Data, who had reclaimed his position at ops after seeing Admiral Adama safely to the transporter room, turned to face the Captain. "Sir, without our shields we _will_ be vulnerable to their weapons."

"I am aware of that, Mr. Data." The Captain didn't care. "Helm, take us in."

"Aye, sir." The nervous young ensign replied.

Archer had just finished off a particularly annoying Raider that had attempted to come up behind him and was scanning for a new target when he saw something. From above _Galactica_ came a ship like he'd never seen before. "Oh my gods." He said to himself quietly. It was about half the size of one of the Battlestars, but it had a sleek beautiful look that he couldn't take his eyes off of. It had to be the alien ship he'd heard about. What else could it be?

Then, as he looked up at the strange ship, a beam of red light shot out from the underside of the rounded section at the front. His eyes widened, what was it? Fortunately for him the light turned out to be some sort of energy weapon which immediately vaporized the Cylon Raider that had begun advancing on his position while he was distracted. This was enough to shake the Viper pilot out of his incredulous daze, and send him back to the work at hand. Aliens or no aliens there were still a whole lot of Cylons just begging to be scrap.

The _Enterprise_ managed to save a few more Viper pilots who were in imminent danger of a rather unpleasant death, but its captain had a different goal in mind. If they were going to end this before the ship was riddled with holes they had only one option.

"Mr. Worf, fire as soon as the Basestar is in range." Fortunately the _Enterprise's_ phaser range proved to be much greater than that of the weapons used by the Cylon Raiders. So the cloud of Raiders protecting their mother ship was completely unable to fend off the initial assault from the Federation ship, those that weren't immediately destroyed when the ruby beams of Starfleet phasers lanced through the cloud to strike at the heart of the Cylon capital ship, that is.

In a matter of moments the barrage of phaser fire was slicing the unprepared Cylon ship to pieces. One of the large spines, itself almost the size of the _Enterprise_ was cut off and began to float silently away from the huge ship. Then, suddenly, the Cylon behemoth was gone.

"Mr. Worf?" Picard inquired urgently.

"It's gone, Captain. It just disappeared."

"It jumped away." Helo said with not a little amazement in his voice. Since the _Enterprise_ had begun her attack run he had been completely silent, flabbergasted by the incredible power that the ship displayed, not to mention the firing precision, picking off Cylon Raiders in mid-flight with their beams, phasers they'd called them. He'd had some doubts about the bargain struck by the Admiral. He didn't think that these strangers could offer anything that would justify the tremendous risk that Adama had taken. Karl "Helo" Agathon doubted no more. The ease with which the _Enterprise_ had dispatched the dreaded Cylon capital ship was enough to convince even the most skeptical that they finally had a chance. With Picard's ship to help them, the Cylons didn't stand a chance.

"What about the fighters?" The Captain asked the Klingon.

"They are beginning to disappear as well, sir." Picard could already see that the Raiders that had made up the protective cloud around the Basestar were almost completely gone, with very little help from his ship. When the _Enterprise_ had first opened fire on the larger ship many of the Raiders protecting it had begun an attack run on the _Enterprise._ However, the rapid retreat of their mother ship discouraged most of them, and Worf used the phaser banks to permanently discourage the more persistent ones. Now there were very few left, and those were disappearing from sight rapidly.

"Excellent." Picard proclaimed.

Commander Riker took the liberty of deciding what to do next. "Mr. Worf, bring us around. Let's help our new friends clean up any stragglers."

An hour later another meeting was convened in the _Enterprise's_ conference room. This time Lee Adama was present, seated across from his father. "Your ship is quite impressive, Captain." He said. His tone was sincere, but it betrayed a small amount of trepidation.

"Thank you, Commander." Picard replied earnestly.

"That it is," the Admiral agreed. He was not however in the mood for small talk. "I take it," he continued, "that you would agree that we fulfilled our part of our arrangement, Captain."

"Indeed you did, Admiral." Picard replied.

"We readily admit that your ship is more powerful than ours." Admiral Adama stated. "So, the question becomes, will you fulfill your part?"

"You don't have experience with the Federation, Admiral." Picard began. "So I will explain something to you. We are a people of our word." Heads around the table nodded in agreement. "We made an agreement, and we plan on seeing it through."

Admiral Adama allowed a rare smile. "I expected as much, Captain." He reached out his hand to Picard who took it amicably.

"My chief engineer has informed me that all of the ships systems are now online." Picard said, indicating LaForge who was now seated near the end of the conference table. "So, we are ready to begin as soon as you give the word, Admiral."

"The word is given, Captain."

A discussion followed about how the attack on the Cylon fleet orbiting New Caprica would be staged. It would take the colonial ships several FTL (faster than light) jumps to reach the coordinates, with breaks of a half hour between jumps for the engines to be ready to jump again. Oddly enough the distance that the Battlestars were capable of jumping would take the _Enterprise_ approximately a half hour to cover.

It was decided that the two colonial ships would wait another half hour before the final jump and thus arrive there at almost the same moment as the _Enterprise._ As the planning session ended and the guests began to board to turbolift to head back to their ships, the Admiral took a moment to speak to Picard privately.

"I would like for Lieutenant Agathon to remain here." He said, "as a liaison between our ships."

"Of course, Admiral." Picard said. "I was actually going to suggest the same thing."

Adama explained the situation to Helo, who accepted the assignment, although not with the degree of fervor that the Admiral might have hoped for.

After the short conversation Adama headed toward the turbolift door where his son and Counselor Troi were waiting to head to the transporter room. Data's voice rang out across the bridge. "Captain, Admiral, I have discovered something that may be of interest." Both of the officers turned toward the ops station where Data was inputting commands into his console.

"What is it, Commander?" Picard asked curiously.

"I have detected a non-human life-sign aboard _Galactica_."

Everyone was taken aback. The colonial officers had been very clear on the fact that before today they'd never encountered an alien life form. "Where?" The Admiral asked quickly.

A cross-section of the Battlestar appeared on the viewscreen with one small spot blinking red. "The holding cells?" Adama quietly asked himself. Then he exchanged surprised looks with Apollo and then with Helo who appeared to be in complete shock.

"Sharon." Helo said to no one in particular.

Picard glanced curiously at the colonial officers. "Do you know who it is, Admiral?"

"We have a Cylon prisoner in the holding cells." Helo seemed to chafe somewhat at the word prisoner, but Adama took no notice. "Captain, do you mean that your scanners can differentiate between humans and Cylons?"

"So it would appear." Picard replied. The Admiral had told him about their infiltration problem, but it had never occurred to the Captain that his ship's sensors could solve the problem so readily.

Lee Adama lit up. "Could you scan both ships for any other Cylons?"

"Of course." Picard nodded to Data who began the scan.

A moment later it was done. "No other non-human life-signs detected." Data declared. The three colonials looked at each other, and it was as if a giant weight had suddenly been lifted from their shoulders. All this time they'd been forced to look at every person with suspicion. The Admiral, especially, knew the horror of finding out that someone was a Cylon too late. Now, in an instant, all the worrying was gone.

Both of the Adamas felt better than they had in months. "Captain Picard, Commander Data," Lee said, looking from one officer to the other, "you have our heart-felt thanks." He extended his hand to each of them in turn.

"Let's all hope," Riker chimed in from the rear of the bridge, "that you have more to thank us for before this is all said and done." This brought the colonial officers back to the task at hand, and they nodded in agreement before the two Adamas, in the company of the lovely counselor, boarded to turbolift to return to their respective ships.

Picard stood next to his chair and looked at the viewscreen. "Helm," he said, "as soon as the Battlestars have jumped take us to the first set of coordinates, warp five." Then he turned to his first officer. "Number One, it will be several hours before we reach New Caprica. I think we could all use some rest. See to it that Lieutenant Agathon is assigned suitable quarters for the remainder of the mission."

"Yes, sir." Riker replied. Helo said nothing, wondering what sort of quarters the _Enterprise_ had for its guests. He was in for a pleasant surprise.

Several hours later the _Enterprise_ found itself moving through the nebula that surrounded New Caprica. At one time the colonists had hoped that it would keep the Cylons from finding them. In reality it kept them from seeing the Cylon invasion fleet approach until it was far too late.

"As soon as we're clear of the nebula, open fire on any Cylon targets of opportunity, Mr. Worf."

"Aye, sir." Worf said, only too happy to comply.

The battle was short. The _Enterprise_ encountered a large Cylon fleet in orbit of New Caprica, but once they opened fire on the nearest Basestar with a full spread of quantum torpedoes and phasers, it was destroyed completely. The other ships, surprised at the sudden appearance of this completely unknown, yet incredibly powerful ship, disappeared into the cloud, which the Federation ship's sensors were unable to penetrate. Data was quick to note that the ships appeared to have retreated, but not jumped away using their FTL drives, which indicated that they might intend to return soon. By the time the two Battlestars arrived, it was all over.

"Mr. Data," Picard ordered, "scan the planet's surface."

Data's fingers danced across the console while the rest of the bridge crew waited, still on alert for a possible Cylon counter attack. "All of the human life-signs seem to be centered on one small area of the planet." This confirmed what the Admiral and Helo had told them about the colonization. "I am detecting approximately 39,000 humans, as well as several hundred Cylons, of various configurations." Helo had spent the last half hour before their arrival going over the different known Cylon types with Data. "Also picking up several structures, most appear to be makeshift dwellings and landed spacecraft. One is ... unusual."

"Unusual?" Riker asked.

"Yes, Commander. It is composed of a material that I am unfamiliar with."

"Onscreen." Picard said.

Data tapped a few controls and before them appeared a monolith, in the center of several small building and the remains of spacecraft that appeared to have been cannibalized for use in the construction of the other structures. It appeared to be a building of massive proportions, standing in stark contrast to the make- shift structures that surrounded it.

"I am encountering difficulty in scanning inside the structure. There appears to be a signal of some sort moving through the material that the building is composed of, making our scans imprecise at best."

"Can you get any sort of reading?" Riker asked.

"I am changing the sensor frequency." Data responded, as if that answered the question. A moment later, "That appears to have negated most of the interference. I am picking up several human life-signs as well as humanoid Cylons. I am also detecting ..." Data did the android equivalent of a double-take. "Oh shit." There were times, thanks to his emotion chip, that even Data's professional composure slipped. This was one of them.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 5. If you have any feedback positive or negative, leave me a review. 


	6. Chapter 6: I'll Take

We're Boned!  
Part 6: I'll Take "Who the Hell Are You?" For 400, Alex

A palpable silence hung over the room. No one knew exactly what to say after such a shocking revelation. Simon had just dropped quite the bomb on the group. One of the strangers who seemed to have materialized out of thin air in the middle of resistance headquarters was apparently something of a celebrity back in New Caprica City, but Simon wasn't done dropping bombshells quite yet.

"No." He said finally, breaking the silence.

"No, what?" Starbuck asked.

"No, it can't be her."

"What do you mean it can't be her?" Tyrol asked harshly. "You just said it was. What, did you change your mind?"

Samantha Carter was quickly tiring of being talked about like she wasn't sitting right in front of them, but just as she started to say something Simon began again, "It looks like her." He said, "But it can't be."

"Why not?" Chief Tyrol asked, becoming rather annoyed by this whole conversation.

"She was seen in town again today," Simon explained, "not an hour before I left. There's no way she could have gotten here before me."

"Then there's more than one of her." The Chief declared. "So she _is_ a Cylon." He concluded triumphantly.

"No." Simon replied. "She can't be a Cylon. When she showed up the toasters were as surprised as we were." Tyrol looked at him skeptically. "And that ship" he continued, "there is no way Cylons made that thing."

"Fine." Tyrol said, frustrated. "She's not a Cylon. They're not Cylons. Even better. That means we can kill them now and not worry about the toasters finding out where we are."

"What kind of thinking is that?" Starbuck asked.

"Sounds like a good plan to me." It was Demetrius, still keeping his one gun trained on the four prisoners. He glanced at the two resistance leaders. "I'm with the chief. Let's just-" He never got to finish his sentence. His moment of distraction was all that SG-1 needed.

Teal'c, moving with incredible speed, grabbed the gun out of Demetrius' hand, while simultaneously delivering a blow to the head that send the solidly-built man flying across the room. When he landed he was completely unconscious. Jack pushed past Tyrol, who was unarmed, and grabbed a P-90 from the table in the center of the room where the resistance members had stacked SG-1's gear. Daniel did the same, coming up with a zat gun while Carter tackled Kara Thrace who had begun to reach for her sidearm. They struggled for several moments, oblivious to anything else transpiring in the room. Starbuck's gun went flying, and the altercation might have continued if Teal'c hadn't 'grabbed the former viper pilot and placed Demetrius' pistol to her head.

SG-1 was now in complete control of the room, but there was no way to know how long that could last. Starbuck growled, "You have no idea what you've gotten yourselves into."

"We usually don't." O'Neill agreed.

"I could speak one word, and a dozen men would burst in here, guns blazing."

"Speak that word," Teal'c informed her calmly, "and you will never have the opportunity to speak another."

"You think your threats scare me, big guy?" Starbuck declared petulantly.

"Ok, look," Daniel said, his zat aimed in the general direction of Simon and Tyrol, "We're not your enemies here. We've been trying to get you to understand that."

"Well," the Chief said, indicating the guns they were holding, "this isn't helping your case."

"You were holding us prisoner!" Colonel O'Neill said. "How did you think we'd react to that?"

"You broke into our base!" Tyrol retorted. "How did _you_ think that we'd react to _that_?

"We explained that to you." Jack said. "We-"

"Oh right," the Chief replied, "the magic mirror did it. I forgot. Do you seriously expect us to believe that?"

"Well," Jack said slowly. He glanced at Daniel who just shrugged his shoulders. They had to acknowledge that it did seem rather far-fetched.

"This isn't getting us anywhere." Carter declared. She turned to Starbuck who, despite their wrestling match, had been their advocate up till now. "Look, if we agree to lower our weapons, will you agree to talk with us? We have to trust each other, or this is all going to end very badly."

Starbuck looked at Tyrol. The look that he gave her told her that he wasn't happy about the situation, but they really didn't have a choice. "Ok." Starbuck said finally. "You put down your," she looked at the zat in Daniel's hands, "guns, and we all talk this out."

"It's weird how often this happens." The Colonel said, rather absently.

"Isn't it?" Daniel agreed.

"Ok, Teal'c," Sam said slowly, "let her go." Teal'c removed his arm from Starbuck who gave him a rather nasty look for his trouble. "Now, let's all lower our guns." The members of SG-1 complied, lowering their weapons but keeping a tight grip on them, in case things went wrong.

Starbuck watched them for a moment. Then, deciding to be a little bit bold, she walked over and picked up her own gun. The four members of SG-1 watched her do it but did not react. Seeing this she made her final decision. Placing her sidearm back in her holster she sauntered over to the table and plopped down into a chair. "Ok," she said, "talk."

The tension in the room subsided somewhat as Major Carter took the seat across from Starbuck, but it by no means disappeared. The table only had four chairs. Daniel and the Chief took the remaining two while Jack stood back, keeping a watchful eye.

Simon, who, during the heat of the moment, had relapsed into intense nervous shaking, walked over to check on Demetrius. Teal'c accompanied him. A cursory glance told the Jaffa that the large man was simply unconscious. "He will recover." Teal'c declared before walking back toward the table, leaving Simon to test that diagnosis for himself.

For the next hour Carter and Daniel explained to the leaders of the New Caprica resistance about the SGC, Earth, the Goa'uld, and the quantum mirror. Every now and then the Colonel would throw in a comment, but the rest of the room remained relatively quiet, aside from the occasional question.

"Ok," Tyrol said finally, "let's say we believe you, as incredible as your story is. None of this explains how you got here. Didn't you say that the mirror transfers you from one universe to another while still touching it? We've never seen one of these mirrors. There's definitely not one of them in there." He gestured toward the storage room where SG-1 had mysteriously materialized.

"Well," Carter replied, "I've been thinking about that. When we came into contact with the mirror I thought I heard the mirror shatter."

"I heard that too." Daniel agreed.

"As did I." Teal'c said.

Everyone looked at Jack expectantly. "I, uh, didn't notice." The looks became incredulous. "Hey," He said defensively, "I think I had more pressing concerns, like a 200 pound Jaffa on my back!"

"Regardless," Carter continued, "if the mirror was destroyed in the middle of transporting us between dimensions it could, theoretically, have deposited us anywhere. Maybe even any time."

"Any _time_?" Daniel asked.

"Well, theoretically." Sam replied.

"I hate when that happens." Jack said dejectedly.

"So how do we return?" Teal'c asked.

"That I don't know." Carter admitted.

"You ▒don't know'?" the Colonel repeated.

"We need more information, sir."

"As fascinating and sad as all of this is," Kara began, "it doesn't explain why you seem to have a twin sister flying around having secret meetings with the Cylons."

Carter had been expecting that to come up. "We've encountered quite a few alternate realities inhabited by duplicates of ourselves." She replied. "It's possible that, by some amazing coincidence, a Samantha Carter from this universe is visiting this planet right now."

"Whatever is going on, we're just as interested in getting to the bottom of it as you are." Colonel O'Neill declared.

"We still don't know if we can trust you." Starbuck said, "but I guess we don't have much of a choice. Besides, you seem to be pretty good in a fight," she glanced at Teal'c. "Ok, we're going."

"Going?" Tyrol asked. "Going where?"

"To the city." Starbuck replied. Then, before he could argue with her he continued. "The toasters have started taking our people, Chief. If we're going to do something we need to do it now."

Tyrol couldn't really argue with her on that. "And we're taking them?" He asked.

"We can use all the help we can get." Tyrol looked rather dour at the prospect of going into hostile territory with the four strangers. "Look at the bright side, Chief," Starbuck said, smiling, "maybe their crazy weapons will make good toaster toasters." Neither the sentiment nor the pun was much comfort.

As Simon led the party back toward the city, Kara answered SG-1's questions concerning the enemy they were about to face. "So what you're saying is that these machines have basically killed off the entire human race?" Daniel asked.

"Basically." Starbuck affirmed.

"If that's the case," Carter pointed out, "then why is anyone on this planet still alive?"

It was a good question, but it was also one that only the Cylons knew the answer to. "We don't know." Starbuck replied finally.

"Well, you know what they say about gift horses." Colonel O'Neill chimed in.

"What?" The Chief asked.

"Never mind." He turned back to Starbuck. "So up to now the robots have been playing the nice guy, but all of a sudden they're up to their old tricks again, is that it?"

"That's what we're going to find out." Starbuck knew that, aside from one possibility that she didn't want to contemplate, there was no reason for the Cylons to be taking people one by one. They needed to figure out what was going on.

The party was composed of eight people. Simon was in the lead followed closely by Tyrol and Starbuck. Behind them came the four newcomers from Stargate command, whose gear had been returned to them before they'd set out on the mission. Tasked with bringing up the rear, as well as keeping a watchful eye on the strangers from Earth was Demetrius, who was still somewhat worse for the wear after his encounter with Teal'c. He was a bit embarrassed that he had been taken by surprise so easily, and he was determined not to let it happen again. Unfortunately for him, that would be his last conscious thought.

Without warning bullets had begun flying from somewhere off in the woods that they were traversing. Demetrius was hit instantly and was dead before his body even landed on the leaves strewn across the hard ground. The rest of the party managed to dive behind some nearby rocks for cover.

"Cylon patrol!" Starbuck yelled. She popped up from behind the rocks and squeezed off a few rounds before ducking back down. "Two Centurians at 11 o'clock, up the slope about 20 meters. One more at two o'clock, about 30 meters."

O'Neill was impressed with proficiency, but this wasn't the time to mention it. "Weaknesses?" He asked Starbuck.

"You have to hit them in the head. If you don't take that out they'll keep firing."

"Good to know." The Colonel said. "Teal'c, Carter." He indicated that Teal'c should fire with him at the two Centurians up the slope and Carter should focus on the one down the slope. The three quickly got into position and then simultaneously came up from behind the rocks, firing for about 4 seconds before ducking back down.

Starbuck looked at Daniel, "How about you?"

"I'm, uh, more of a scientist." Daniel replied.

"Oh, great." Starbuck replied, with barely disguised disgust.

"Looks like the two uphill are staying put for now. We got one of them, winged the other one." Teal'c and O'Neill had managed to coordinate their fire on the first of the Centurians, obliterating his head with the high-speed barrage of bullets from their P-90s. The other one had taken cover behind a tree but not before the Colonel had managed to hit it in the arm, damaging one of its weapons.

"The other one is moving closer." Carter warned. "I hit him, but he's still coming."

Jack saw that Daniel had his zat out and looked like he wanted the opportunity to use it. Jack wasn't sure why. He'd missed the exchange between Daniel and Kara. "Give it a shot." He said.

Starbuck had missed the non-verbal part of that exchange and wasn't sure what the Colonel was referring to when she suddenly saw Daniel jump up. Jackson managed to squeeze off a few shots, hitting with two of them before a barrage of bullets forced him back down behind the rock. "Hit him twice." Daniel said.

"And?" Jack asked. Then renewed firing seemingly answered his question for him.

"Still coming." Daniel confirmed. After a moment's consideration he made a decision. "One more time." He said, renewing his grip on the zat gun.

"Why?!" Starbuck demanded. It was obvious to her that whatever that strange weapon did, it didn't have any effect on the Centurians.

Ignoring the question Daniel jumped up and fired again. The Centurian was very close now, and Daniel easily managed to hit him again. After this third hit the large Cylon seemed to just evaporate, and Daniel ducked back down.

In the meantime Teal'c, Sam, and Jack had managed to eliminate the final Cylon. The combined assault from their three P-90s had been too much for the Centurian as well as the small tree that it was hiding behind, which now lay in splinters on the ground next to the remains of the two Cylons.

Everyone had ducked back behind the rock, just in case there were more of them. "Got him." Sam declared.

"Me too." Daniel said. Starbuck looked at him, the obvious question in her mind. Daniel explained, holding up the zat gun, "One shot stuns, two shots kills, three shots disintegrates." Starbuck looked impressed, with a newfound respect for the odd-looking little device.

"I thought you were ▒more of a scientist.'" She said, mockingly.

"Well, I have my moments." The archeologist smiled.

"As touching as this is," Tyrol said, making his presence known for the first time since the battle had started, "we need to get going."

"Right." The Colonel agreed.

The chief had some reservations about leaving Demetrius' body behind, not to mention the remains of three Cylons. If another scouting party found them, they would be that much closer to finding the resistance base, despite it being an hour's walk from where the battle had occurred, but they had a mission to complete. There was no time for grave-digging.

It was getting dark when the group finally approached the outskirts of the city. Several unfinished buildings were clearly visible. It seemed that the Cylons really had been constructing places for the human population to live. Although why that was remained anybody's guess. Simon noticed Starbuck looking at the buildings. "The toasters stopped building a few days ago, right around the time people started disappearing, just put down their tools and walked off all of a sudden."

"And they haven't done a damn thing since, except take our people." The voice came from an older man who had just stepped out of the shadows.

SG-1 leveled their weapons at the new arrival who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, but Tyrol motioned to them, indicating that things were alright. Starbuck, taken aback at first, jumped forward to give the man a hug. "Colonel!" She exclaimed. Jack pointed to himself questioningly, but no one was paying attention.

"It's good to see you too, Starbuck, but could you all make any more noise? It's not like we're in the middle of enemy territory."

"Sorry, sir." Starbuck said, straightening up. Fortunately the noise from the hundreds of people milling around was more than enough to mask their arrival. Curfew hadn't begun yet.

Colonel Saul Tigh, former XO of the Battlestar _Galactica_ and current leader of the resistance forces operating within New Caprica City, had grown a beard as well. It suited him. On the night that the rest of the resistance had fled New Caprica City, Colonel Tigh, much to the chagrin of his wife Ellen, had opted to stay behind, to try and look after the people left behind as best he could. There hadn't been a lot he could do, except coordinate the flow of information within the underground and funnel it to the resistance. Now, however, he had something bigger planned. Then he noticed SG-1. "Who the hell are these people?" He asked.

"Long story." Tyrol replied.

"Give me the short version."

"They're with us." Starbuck replied. This seemed to be enough for Tigh. Fortunately, it was too dark for him to notice the uncanny resemblance between Major Carter and a certain visitor from the stars or the long version might have been necessary.

"Hope you all are ready for a fight." Tigh said after a moment.

"What do you mean?" Chief Tyrol asked. As far as he was concerned this mission was strictly recon.

"I mean that they've taken another five dozen people since I sent Simon to talk to you. They're getting more brazen about it too, just walking out and grabbing people. Then dragging them back to that damn citadel thing."

For once Starbuck had a powerful partner in her desire for active resistance. "Ok," she said, "so what are we going to do about it?"

"Follow me." Tigh ordered. As they walked he explained the plan. He had ten marines, armed and ready to go. They were going to infiltrate the citadel and take out the Cylon leadership. The human-form Cylons leading the invasion would be resurrected, but as far as the resistance could tell there weren't resurrection facilities on New Caprica. So it would be a while before word reached the Cylon forces on the planet. During that small window they would find out why the Cylons were taking humans to the citadel and finally they would locate and detain the blonde woman who had arrived in the strange spaceship.

"Why?" Tyrol asked when Tigh mentioned the blonde. The four members of SG-1 decided it would probably be best not to say anything while the resistance made their plans.

"There's something about her." Tigh said. "The Cylons seem almost scared of her, and that ship she's got, no one has ever seen anything like it. If we can get our hands on the kind of technology that scares even the Cylons-"

"Then we might actually stand a chance of beating them!" Starbuck declared, finishing the thought for him.

"At the very least we might be able to use her and her ship to find _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_." Colonel Tigh said. "Get us back into the fight."

"Ok," Colonel O'Neill said, speaking for the first time since they'd met the other Colonel. "We're in. How do we get into this citadel thing?" They could see it looming in the distance.

Colonel Tigh looked at O'Neill, still not trusting the strange new person, but apparently the word of Kara Thrace was good enough for him. If Jack O'Neill had known about the history that those two shared that fact alone would have seemed pretty incredible. "My wife," Tigh replied, after a moment's appraisal of the Colonel, "Ellen, she's got us a way in."

"How?" Starbuck asked.

"Who knows." Tigh replied. "Whenever I ask her all she'll say is, 'I have my ways.' I've learned that that is usually enough."

Tyrol now spoke up, "Will we be able to pick up the others before we leave the planet?" He asked.

Colonel Tigh stopped walking and looked at the Chief, with understanding in his eyes. "I know you're worried about your wife and kid, Chief. I promise we'll do what we can." The answer didn't seem to satisfy Tyrol at all, but he knew it was the best that he could expect. The party continued on.

By the time they arrived at the citadel the light was completely gone. The building itself was a hulking black mass in the night. New Caprica didn't even have a moon to provide light, and all of the stars were blocked by the nebulous clouds that they had once hoped to use to hide from the Cylons. There were no Cylon patrols to be seen. According to Tigh they'd stopped patrolling the area at about the same time they'd stopped doing most everything else. The group was headed for a specific spot. When they arrived they found Ellen Tigh already waiting for them.

The husband and wife embraced each other and shared a quick kiss. "Thank the gods you're all right." Ellen said. "I was getting so worried."

"Nothing to be worried about yet." Colonel Tigh replied. "You got our way in?"

"Of course." She said quickly. She began to feel along the wall. It was too dark to make out any details on it. Then there was a click and a section of the wall slid away. At the same moment several figures emerged from a nearby tent. Everyone raised their weapons in anticipation, but after a sign and a countersign it was determined that the figures were actually the ten marines that the Colonel had promised.

After a few last minute instructions the whole group entered the doorway. Simon had taken off just after the party had met up with Colonel Tigh. So there were ten marines, four members of SG-1, Starbuck, Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, and his wife.

The corridor they entered was dimly lit, although any one of them would have been hard-pressed to say exactly where the light was originating from. The doorway slid shut and disappeared behind them. It caused everyone to turn and look. This was the first good look that the members of SG-1 had gotten at the walls of the citadel. "Oh crap." Jack said, as the reality of their situation dawned on him.

The other three members of his team were feeling various versions of the same sentiment. "We must leave this place at once." Teal'c said, his demeanor calm as usual.

Carter moved toward one of the walls to examine it more closely. "They're definitely replicator blocks, Colonel." She said carefully.

"What the hell are you people talking about?" Tigh interjected. "We need to move, **now**."

Daniel turned to the group of colonials. "This entire building is made of replicator blocks. Do you have any idea what that means?" They stared at him blankly. "Of course you don't." He concluded. "Look," Daniel was talking fast now, "replicators are a race of technological, uh-"

"Bugs." Jack offered.

"Thank you, a race of technological 'bugs,' for lack of a better term. Their only goal in life is to create more of themselves, to replicate. They will kill anything in their way, and they will consume any natural resource that they can use to that end. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"

"What kind of frakking psychos did you bring with you, Starbuck?" Kara shrugged her shoulders. She was only slightly less confused by what she was hearing than the Colonel was, and that was just because she was used to these people saying completely unbelievable things. "Look," Tigh said firmly, "if you want to leave, that's your own business. We're moving ahead right now." He turned and motioned to the rest of the group who began to follow him down the passageway. Starbuck was the last to leave, giving the strangers a sympathetic look and a shrug before moving off after the others.

The four members of SG-1 looked at each other for a long moment. Finally Daniel spoke. "They're going to need our help if they're going to finish this mission, especially if the replicators are involved now."

Jack O'Neill sighed. He knew Daniel was right. "Besides," he said, "if we don't go we'll never find out about this other Carter they keep saying they've seen." Sam and Teal'c nodded their heads in agreement and the four of them hurried off in the direction of the colonial group.

They'd been walking for several minutes and an eerie sense of unease was gradually replacing the tension of being inside the enemy's stronghold. Not only had they not seen a single person, or Cylon for that matter, since they'd entered the citadel, but the passageway they were traversing hadn't so much as forked. The patterned wall hadn't revealed so much as a doorway or even a doorknob. The members of SG-1 knew that this was irrelevant. You didn't need doorknobs in a wall made out of replicator blocks, but it was unnerving nonetheless.

Daniel looked at Jack. "Maybe this isn't the best time to bring this up." He said, "but I just remembered something."

"What is it?"

"You know that room on P3X-725? The one where we found the second mirror that took us here?"

"Kind of hard to forget it." Major Carter noted.

"Well, the walls there were made of replicator blocks too." His three other team members turned and looked at him incredulously. "That's what made me jump back into Teal'c." Daniel explained. "But in all the excitement since then, it had sort of slipped my mind... until now."

"Great." Jack said. There wasn't much else to do about it now.

Finally the corridor ended into a large room. It was completely bare except for a few stairs leading up to a raised section of the floor, akin to a stage, all made out of replicator blocks, of course. The entire party stopped just short of entering the room. They peered in, no one in sight.

"Ok," Colonel Tigh said slowly. "We've got to be careful here. Chief," Tyrol straightened up, "you go left. Captain," Starbuck looked at him, "you go right. I'll go into the middle. You four," the members of SG-1 turned to him, "you're coming with me." They all nodded in agreement. Then he turned to the rest of the party. "You men, hang back. We don't want to tip our hand too soon. Be ready to rush in if we run into trouble." The men's determined faces absorbed their orders. Finally Tigh turned to his wife. "Ellen, you stay with them."

"But, Saul,"

"No buts, Ellen, if fighting starts I want you to stay back behind the others." She obviously wasn't happy about it, but she nodded her head in submission.

"Ok," he said. "Let's move out." The party of seven made their way into the seemingly empty room. Only the members of SG-1 fully understood that no room could be safe when it was composed of replicator blocks. However, for the moment, the blocks seemed content to just remain where they were, and none of the people from Stargate Command wanted to press the issue.

The party glanced around the room. It seemed to be as empty as it had first appeared, and there was no way out. The journey into the heart of the Cylon base on New Caprica seemed to have dead-ended. "Looks like we're clear." Tigh said, turning toward the passageway where the rest of his men were waiting.

"Oh, I don't know if I'd go that far, Colonel Tigh." A voice said. Everyone spun around in time to see Samantha Carter standing center-stage on the raised section of the floor. At least, it looked a lot like Samantha Carter.

"Who the hell are you?" Tigh asked. He knew full well that this was the women who they had come to kidnap, but that wasn't really an answer to the question he'd asked.

"I'd like to know that too." Major Carter chimed in.

For the first time Tigh took a good look at Major Carter, and his face went pale. He'd been traveling with the woman that they were here to get, at least one copy of her. "A Cylon!" He declared, drawing his gun and swinging it back and forth between the Major and the woman on the stage.

"No, no, nothing so straight-forward as that, my dear Colonel." The woman replied smoothly.

Before Tigh could respond Ellen came flying out of the passageway. "Ellen!" He exclaimed. "I said," then suddenly the opening connecting the passageway to the large room disappeared, trapping the contingent of colonial marines.

Colonel O'Neill, who was standing closest to where the opening had once been could make out the familiar sounds of replicators moving, followed by gunshots, then by screams, and finally by silence.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Colonel Tigh demanded.

Ignoring him Ellen Tigh walked up the stairs toward the woman who looked so remarkably like Major Carter. "How did I do?" She asked.

"Perfectly, my friend." The other woman replied. When she topped the staircase she took up a position standing beside the other Samantha Carter.

Colonel Tigh looked from one to the other, not sure what to make of what was happening. "Ellen?" He asked, plaintively.

"I'm sorry, Saul," she said, "but being married to you just doesn't come with the..." she searched for just the right word, "benefits that it once did." She looked at the other woman. "I've gotten a better offer." She smiled wryly.

The look on Saul Tigh's face illustrated the betrayal and heartbreak that he felt. The woman on the stage just laughed. She put her hand on Ellen's back. "A woman after my own heart." She declared. Suddenly Ellen's smile morphed into a look of shock, and she reached up and touched a large blade that was protruding from her chest. Then she fell to the ground. "If I had a heart, that is." The other woman declared, laughing. The giant blade morphed back into her arm.

"She's a replicator!" Daniel exclaimed.

"A replicator version of Carter?" O'Neill asked, looking at Daniel. "So, like, RepliCarter?"

"Astute as ever, I see, Colonel." RepliCarter said. At that moment Starbuck and Tyrol who had been hanging back during the entire exchange opened fire on the human-form replicator. The bullets passed through her harmlessly, making a few impressions in the wall behind her. RepliCarter just laughed. When the firing stopped she looked at them, an amused grin on her face. "Finished?" She asked playfully. The two colonial soldiers looked on, dumbfounded. "Good," the woman proclaimed, then turned toward her human counterpart who the rest of SG-1 had gathered around. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions." She said.

"Like who exactly you are." Sam agreed.

"And what your purpose is here." Teal'c put in.

"Well," RepliCarter said. "I suppose I owe you some sort of explanation. You are, after all, the reason I exist. Where to begin... Well, do you remember your last encounter with human-form replicators?"

"When we went to repair the Asgard time dilation device." Sam affirmed.

"Exactly." The other Sam agreed. "During that time, the replicator known as Fifth entered your mind, and he offered to help you escape. You repaid this, of course, by betraying him."

"That wasn't my idea." Carter said, glancing at Colonel O'Neill.

"That's not important." RepliCarter said. "What is important is that while he was in your mind Fifth took the equivalent of a mental snap-shot of its contents. After you betrayed him and left he became obsessed with you. The result was me. A perfect copy of you. Only I am not hindered by the emotional conscience that holds you back from what you're capable of."

"So the other human-form replicators are here too?" Carter asked.

"No." The other Carter replied. "Once we discovered how to escape from the Asgard's time dilation field their narrow views became an annoyance to me. Even Fifth, superior to the others in his ambition, proved to be tiresome. So I eliminated them."

"You killed the other human-forms?"

"They were unnecessary. We function much more efficiently with me in sole command of my replicator brethren." She used her hands to indicate the replicator blocks composing the structure.

"Then what are you doing here?" Colonel O'Neill said. So far Starbuck and Chief Tyrol seemed content to just sit and listen after their failed attack. Colonel Tigh had fallen to his knees at the sight of his wife being murdered and hadn't moved or said a word since.

"It's interesting. I was on my way to destroy _you_ actually. I had plans to make Earth our home base in your galaxy, but, as luck would have it, the first planet we approached in the Milky Way had something in store for us. We discovered a quantum mirror. I found a way to adapt the technology, and I realized, why settle for one universe when the vast reaches of all reality lay before me, ripe for the picking."

"But there are an infinite number of parallel realities." Major Carter objected. "Trying to conquer them all would literally take forever."

"We have the time." RepliCarter replied, smiling knowingly. "I led my replicator brethren to a few realities, conquering several planets, always making sure to secure the quantum mirror on the same planet in each reality. However, I soon discovered that there were many universes where the level of technology present exceeded our own. As powerful as we were, we could not conquer all of reality without supplementing our forces."

"In other words," Daniel translated, "you needed help."

"We began to seek out allies." RepliCarter said. "Allies with the same ambition and the same drive as our own."

"And you found the Cylons!" Starbuck declared, stepping forward and entering the conversation for the first time.

"Absolutely right, Captain Thrace." RepliCarter replied. "The Cylons, a cybernetic race with something of an axe to grind with their creators. They were initially skeptical of my offer, but there was one model that saw the potential in an alliance. The blonde looked to her right where a doorway had suddenly materialized and out walked an 8, the model that the colonial officers knew as Sharon Valeri or Boomer.

Chief Tyrol took a step forward. " Sharon?" He asked cautiously.

Sharon looked at him and smiled. "Yes, Chief. Not either of the ones you know, but I am Sharon."

" Sharon was the only model to realize the possible benefits of my offer. I'm afraid the others were somewhat uncooperative." She turned to Sharon again with a smile.

"They never were that smart." Boomer replied.

"So you destroyed the rest of them?" Starbuck asked. She was torn, the rest of the human Cylons were apparently gone, but they seemed to have been replaced by someone or something much worse.

"The rest of the human models were... unnecessary." RepliCarter concluded. The other models, the Centurians, for instance, still have their uses. In fact it was them relaying images to us that made this meeting possible." She turned back to the four members of SG-1. "When I saw that you were traveling with the resistance, well, I had to speak to you myself. So I made a deal with our friend Ellen here." She indicated the corpse that still lay at her feet. "Now, if I've answered all of your questions, we really should finish this, shouldn't we?" She looked at Sharon who nodded in agreement.

"One last thing." Carter said, to the surprise of her replicator counterpart. "What are you doing with the people that you've been abducting from the city."

RepliCarter and Boomer laughed. "That's explained easily enough." The blonde declared. "It's the same thing that we're about to do to you."

With that another figure walked through the doorway. She appeared to be dressed entirely in black, though what exactly she was dressed in was hard to say. Her skin was a ghastly shade of gray and from the top of her head sprouted several tubes.

Jack turned to Daniel. "Bad hair day?" Daniel shrugged.

RepliCarter began speaking again. "Let me introduce you to one other person whose acquaintance I've made in my travels. I'd like you to meet the Queen of the Borg Collective."

"So they're mine?" The Borg Queen asked.

"Of course." RepliCarter replied. Sharon nodded. "As per our agreement."

Sections of wall began to disappear around the room. Out of the openings appeared Borg drones, although none of the soon-to-be drones in the room knew that term. "You see," RepliCarter explained, "my brethren desire to replicate, using minerals and other resources. However, we lack the ability to grow, and to incorporate new technologies. The Cylons," she looked at Boomer, "believe it's their divine mission to destroy and conquer. Although I think Sharon here is more interested in power. They also have ingenious methods of preserving the experience and intelligence of individual units. They learn from their mistakes, including death. The Borg are the ultimate adapters, absorbing the best characteristics and technology of each new species they encounter and making it part of themselves. Not even you organic life forms are wasted. Working together we will be unstoppable." She glanced at the Borg Queen who nodded almost imperceptibly. Then she looked back at the humans (and the Jaffa) who had begun using their weapons to try and fend off the approach of the Borg. Then she smiled. "Resistance is futile." The members of the triumvirate began to laugh.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 6. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review.


	7. Chapter 7: Well, That Was Lucky

We're Boned!  
Part 7: Well, that was lucky. 

"Captain, I am detecting weapons in a state of discharge."

"Deactivate them, Mr. Data."

"Yes, sir." Data entered a few commands into the console in front of him. "Weapons deactivated." He reported a moment later.

"Very well, continue with the rematerialization process, Commander."

Data tapped out several more commands and seven columns of blue light began to coalesce on the transporter pad, quickly resolving into humanoid figures, many of which still brandished now impotent weapons. When the rematerialization process was complete several of them began looking around and pointing their weapons, obviously confused. There were two security officers standing behind the Captain, phasers at the ready in case the visitors should prove to be unfriendly.

"What just happened?" One of the men dressed in black fatigues asked.

"I don't know." Another responded.

"Gentlemen," Captain Picard offered, extending his hand, "welcome."

The first man glanced at the extended hand, as if someone had just offered him a large salmon which wasn't entirely fresh. He turned to the other man. "Did we just die? Because, if we did, I think God really is British."

Picard looked amused, "I'm French, actually."

"Wow," the man said, surprised, "I did not see that coming."

Picard tried again, "Gentlemen, and ladies," he looked towards the others who, up to this point, had just watched the exchange, "I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard. You are onboard my starship, the _USS Enterprise_."

Half a dozen pairs of eyes looked at him in disbelief, but before he could say anything more the transporter room doors swished open and the room was suddenly abuzz with activity.

"Helo!" A voice exclaimed as Lieutenant Karl C. Agathon entered the room.

"Starbuck!" Kara made her way down off the transporter pad and the two former ship mates embraced. After a moment they separated, and Helo looked her over. "How did I know that when the Captain said that someone down there was in danger you'd be in the middle of it?"

"You didn't think a year on the surface had made me boring did you?"

"Never crossed my mind." Helo replied warmly.

"Lieutenant Agathon," Picard said, as politely as he could, "Perhaps you'd like to introduce me, since you seem to be acquainted with our new arrivals."

"Oh, of course, Captain. I'm sorry. Captain Picard, this is Captain Kara Thrace, one of the best Viper pilots alive." Starbuck looked like she might say something in response to the qualification that he added, but she had been out of the game for over a year. So she let it go. Tyrol had come near when entered the room, but he hung back to let Starbuck have her reunion. "This is Chief Galen Tyrol." Agathon continued. "Although I hear it's Worker's Union President Tyrol now." He said with a smile.

"It was." The Chief replied, "until the Cylons showed up. "What's going on here, Helo?"

"There'll be plenty of time for explanations later, Chief. For now all you need to know is that Captain Picard and his crew just helped us send the Cylons running." The two colonials looked at Picard, now with awe.

"Well," a voice said, "I think you may have bigger problems than crylons now." Picard turned to the source, the man in black who had mistaken him for God. He then turned back to Agathon.

"I've never seen them before." Helo told the Captain.

The transporter room had grown rather crowded, but Jack O'Neill managed to take a step down from the transporter pad to approach Picard. "Colonel Jack O'Neill," he said, proffering his hand. Picard shook it. "And this is my team. We're, uh, not from around here." He motioned to the other three with his head, deciding to forgo extended introductions in the interest of expediency.

"What problems are you referring to, Colonel?" Picard asked diplomatically. Although he had a good idea what the man might be referring to.

"You may have gotten rid of the local bad guys," Jack said, "but there are Replicators down there. On top of which there seem to be some sort of Swedish robot zombies." He looked at the rest of his team for a second, but not even Carter volunteered a better explanation for what they had seen.

Picard wasn't sure what replicators were, but he'd heard the reference to Sweden before, and he knew what it meant. "The Borg," he confirmed. However, before he could say anything else red lights began to flash, accompanied by loud klaxons.

"Captain Picard to the bridge," Riker's voice said. Data was already heading for the door.

Picard turned to the security officers. "Escort our guests to conference room C," he instructed, "and attend to any medical needs they might have," he added, noticing that one of the men who had beamed up was on his knees and hadn't moved since they'd arrived. He walked quickly out of the room.

Helo watched him go and then quickly turned to Starbuck and Tyrol. "I need to go and see what's happening." He said. "Go with these guys and do what they say. Don't worry. They're friends." Then, before any further questions could be posed he was gone.

Everyone was still for a moment as the red lights flashed around them. There was something going on, but, for once it was not Jack O'Neill's problem, not yet, anyway. "So," he said, turning to the two security officers, "conference room C, is it? Sounds nice. You guys got anything to eat?"

Helo caught up with Captain Picard at the turbolift. "What's going on?" He asked. "Are the Cylons back?"

Picard gave him a meaningful look. "Let's hope that's all it is." He replied intensely.

Helo was initially surprised by the response, but then he remembered how easily the Federation ship had dispatched the Basestars it had encountered so far. The rest of the ride was completed in silence. When the turbolift doors opened onto the bridge the tension was palpable. Commander Riker vacated the central chair, and Picard took his place. It was a move that the two officers had practiced quite a bit over the years.

"Report." The Captain called out.

"Another Cylon ship came out of the nebula." Riker reported. Picard was relieved, but only momentarily because the tone of the Commander's voice indicated that he had more to report. On top of which, everyone was a bit on edge since Data's declaration that there were Borg on the planet below them. "We destroyed it." Riker said, matter-of-factly, "but we're picking up readings from the nebula. It looks like we're going to have some more company."

"Basestars?" Helo interjected from his position, standing behind the two officers.

Data decided to field that particular question. "I do not believe so." He replied. "The readings would seem to indicate-" Data's console began beeping, and he quickly input a few commands. "Captain, a vessel is exiting the nebula."

"Onscreen, Mr. Data."

Helo watched as the viewscreen changed from an image of the planet rotating beneath them to a view of the nebula clouds, looking as real as if he were seeing them out of the window of a Raptor. Then the gasses began to ripple and a shape emerged. Helo couldn't really judge the size of the object from the picture on the viewscreen, but it was unlike anything he'd ever seen. A big black box that was simple and somehow intimidating.

"The Borg." Worf's gruff voice said. Helo turned toward the Klingon. He still wasn't used to seeing an alien, but the hulking Klingon didn't look like he'd be afraid of anything, and yet Helo detected a hint of trepidation underlying Worf's calm, powerful words.

"Mr. Worf," Picard ordered hurriedly, "Hail _Galactica_."

"Captain Picard," the Admiral's voice came over the bridge speakers, "it would appear that the Cylons have a new class of ship."

"I'm afraid it is much worse than that, Admiral." Picard replied quickly. "That ship belongs to a species which we've encountered before, the Borg. We need to fall back to our the rendezvous point, immediately." Before they had made the final leg of their journey to New Caprica, Picard and Adama had agreed on a fallback position in case something went wrong. Something had gone wrong.

"Captain, I've still got thousands of people down on that planet. You promised to help us free them."

"Believe me, Admiral, I am well aware of that, but, at the moments, our ships do not stand a chance against-"

"Captain!" Data interrupted, tapping more controls. The screen displayed another cube exiting the nebula cloud.

"Admiral," Picard continued. "We need to leave now. Trust me."

"Understood, Captain." Then the comm line went dead.

"Does that mean he's leaving or not?" Riker asked, looking at Picard and then at Agathon.

Before Picard could respond a beep from Data's emanated from Data's console. "The Battlestars have jumped." He informed everyone.

"Good," Picard responded. "Helm, lay in a course for the rendezvous point, best possible speed." Peters' fingers moved across his console and the Enterprise lept to warp.

At maximum warp the distance that it took the _Enterprise_ half an hour to traverse at warp five was covered in a matter of minutes. _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ were exactly where Picard had expected to find them, and the entire bridge crew heaved a sigh of relief when Data announced that no one appeared to be pursuing them.

"The Admiral is hailing us, Captain." Worf announced from tactical.

Picard knew that Adama wasn't going to be happy. "Put him through, Mr. Worf."

"Captain," the Admiral's voice said gravely, "I believe we need to talk."

"I agree, Admiral. If you and your son will permit us to beam you over, we have quite a bit to discuss. The landscape has changed rather drastically from when we began this."

"Apparently so." Adama replied. "We're ready when you are, Captain."

Picard signaled Worf to break the connection. Then he turned to Data. "Commander, you and Lieutenant Agathon meet the Admiral in the transporter room and escort him to conference room C." Then he turned to Riker. "Number One, you have the bridge."

Conference room C was the largest one on the Enterprise, but when Picard arrived it was already beginning to look crowded. Counselor Troi was already there. She had a knack for gravitating toward where she was needed most. Troi was seated at the head of the large conference table talking to Colonel O'Neill and his team. Starbuck and Tyrol were standing near the other end of the table talking to Dr. Crusher. Colonel Tigh, to whom Picard had not yet been introduced, was sitting in a chair and seemed to be completely oblivious to his surroundings.

Picard walked over, "Doctor?"

"Captain," she said, "this man seems to be in some sort of psychological shock. He's almost completely unresponsive, although they tell me that they were able to get him to walk here under his own power."

"It took a lot of shoving." Starbuck said.

"Captain Thrace, isn't it?" Picard asked.

"Yes, sir." Starbuck replied. Picard somehow seemed to bring out the military demeanor which had so rarely shown in the past.

"Who is this?"

"Colonel Tigh," she replied. "He was the XO of Galactica before heading down to New Caprica."

"I'd like to take the Colonel to sickbay for some tests and observations." The Doctor said. She looked at Kara, "Captain Thrace has informed me that he underwent a rather upsetting experience just prior to being beamed up."

"By all means, Doctor." Then Picard turned to the two colonials. "You're welcome to accompany him, but I am certain that the Admiral will want at least one of you to be here when he arrives."

"The Admiral is coming?" Tyrol asked. He exchanged a quick look with Starbuck.

"We'll stay here." She said.

"As you wish," then to Crusher, "go ahead, Doctor."

The doctor and a medical technician who had accompanied her carefully escorted Colonel Tigh out the door. Starbuck and Tyrol both took seats at the conference table while the Captain approached Counselor Troi and SG-1. 

"Captain," Troi greeted him as he approached, "Major Carter was just telling me," she motioned toward Major Carter who Picard had not yet been formally introduced to, "that their team is also from an alternate universe."

"Really?" The Captain asked.

Carter was about to launch into an explanation of how SG-1 had arrived in this particular universe when the doors opened and Admiral Adama walked in, accompanied by his son, Data, Helo, and Geordi LaForge, who had apparently joined the party at some point. The two colonials in the room immediately rose to their feet and approached the Adama.

Starbuck was rewarded with an embrace and Tyrol with a warm handshake. "It's good to see you, sir."

"You too, Chief."

In the meantime Kara and Lee exchanged rather cold looks, but no one else noticed. There were more pressing matters at hand.

"Captain," Adama said authoritatively as he spotted Picard across the room and strolled quickly over to him, "I believe you owe me an explanation."

"Admiral," Picard replied diplomatically, "I believe that there is quite a bit that we both would like to have explained. If you and your crew would take a seat, I suggest we begin with Colonel O'Neill's team here, since neither of us are familiar with them."

The Admiral nodded warily. He still wasn't happy about abandoning the colonists on New Caprica after what had seemed to be a wildly successful liberation, but he knew that Picard probably had good reasons for what he'd done. He also couldn't deny that Picard and his crew had done quite a bit to fulfill their part of the bargain he'd struck with them.

At some point, without anyone noticing, Counselor Troi had vacated the seat at the head of the conference table for one just to the left of Daniel Jackson. Admiral Adama took the seat next to her while the Captain sat in the one Troi had vacated and cast an expectant look at Jack O'Neill.

For a moment Jack looked like he was going to attempt an explanation, as the leader of SG-1, but that moment quickly passed. "I think Major Carter could probably explain the whole thing a lot better." All eyes shifted across the table to Carter who was sitting opposite Jack and to Daniel's right.

Sam launched into a long explanation of who SG-1 was and how they'd gotten into the situation they found themselves in. Admiral Adama seemed rather surprised to hear that they too were from Earth. When she got to the part about the quantum mirror Geordi interrupted. "You say this quantum mirror shattered?"

"Yes," Carter replied, "and since that would have broken the connection mid-transfer, I believe that may be what caused us to suddenly materialize in an alternate universe where the mirror was not, necessarily, present."

"It definitely could." Geordi said enthusiastically. "In fact," he turned to Picard, "it could also explain how we ended up here, Captain."

"How so?" Sam asked, before Picard got the chance.

"We encountered an anomaly that collided with the ship and pushed us into this universe. It's possible that the anomaly was actually some sort of inter-dimensional shockwave, generated by the destruction of the mirror bridging realities."

"Which might explain why our two crossovers happened at about the same time and brought us to the same universe."

"Exactly."

A voice interrupted, "No offense," it was Lee Adama who appeared a little agitated by the sudden departure from the topic under discussion, "but, as interesting as this theory is, aren't there more pressing issues that we should be concerned with?"

"Quite right." Picard agreed. "Mr. LaForge, I would like you to work with Major Carter more on this issue later, but for now, if the Major would care to finish her story."

"Of course." She said. She and Geordi both looked a little embarrassed at having taken the conversation so off course. Sam continued. She went over their arrival on New Caprica and the ensuing controversy as well as the trip to the citadel. At this point she explained the Replicators. She gave a brief summary of their past experience with the Replicators, including their encounter with the human-form models, to her listeners. All of the _Enterprise_ crew was struck by the eerie similarities between the Replicators and the Borg.

Next Starbuck and Tyrol were asked to report on the events they'd been involved in. Their story basically just corroborated that of SG-1. They chose not to address most of what had happened on New Caprica before all of this had started out of their story, as it was a Colonial matter that wouldn't really concern the people from other universes.

Finally it was Picard's turn. How the _Enterprise_ had gotten to the universe of the twelve colonies and the Cylons had already been addressed many times by this point. The only thing that really needed explaining was the Borg, and Picard was the perfect person to make that explanation.

"Ok," Lee said when Picard had finished, "so how are we supposed to beat these Borg? If your ship, your entire civilization, barely survived your last encounter with _one_ of these cubes, how are we supposed to beat more than one?"

"And that's on top of the Cylons and the Replicators." Daniel offered.

"That is what we need to figure out." Picard said. "Ideas?"

"I believe I have something, Captain." Data volunteered, speaking for the first time since the meeting began.

"Go ahead, Mr. Data."

"Assuming that these Borg are similar to the Borg in our universe, and from the reports that we have heard this seems likely, they will initially ignore anything that they do not consider a threat."

"But, we have to assume that as soon as the _Enterprise_ arrives at New Caprica the Borg will consider us a threat." Geordi said.

"That is probable." Data conceded. "However, they will not, in all probability, consider the Colonial ships a threat."

None of the Colonials seemed comfortable with the statement that their most powerful ships were not a threat, but this wasn't the time for bruised egos. "What can our Battlestars do against those Borg ships?" Helo asked.

"If the Borg do not consider your ships a threat than they will most likely not prevent you from beaming over to the cube."

"You want our people to go onboard the cube? Why?" The Admiral asked.

"Not your people, Admiral Adama, your weapons." Geordi said, catching on to Data's plan.

"Exactly." Data confirmed. "If we install transporter technology onboard _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ they should be able to beam nuclear warheads onto the Borg ships, a maneuver which the Borg will not expect."

"Will one warhead per ship be enough to destroy the cubes?" Picard asked. It seemed too easy.

"Probably not." Data admitted. There was a good reason why the Borg wouldn't consider Adama's ships a threat.

"We'd have to find a way to enhance the yield of the warheads." Geordi said.

"Naquedah." Everyone looked at Colonel O'Neill. The word seemed to have come out of nowhere and no one understood what it meant. Seeing their looks, "Naquedah makes nukes bigger."

Carter picked up the explanation, "Naquedah is an element that we've used in the past to drastically increase the yield of nuclear ordinance. I don't know if you have an equivalent in this universe."

Geordi jumped in, "If you can describe the atomic structure for us, we can probably replicate as much as we need." Then he looked at the Captain, "If the Battlestars can destroy the Borg ships first, then the _Enterprise_ should be able to take care of the Basestars."

"What about our people on the ground?" Tyrol asked. He hadn't been at all happy about having to leave Cally behind, but the shock of so much new stuff hitting him at once had kept it in check until now.

"We'll have to send a team." Picard concluded. "Assuming that we're able to destroy the ships in orbit of the planet we'll need a force that can hold off the combined enemy on the ground long enough for us to evacuate your civilian population. After that the _Enterprise_ can destroy the entire site from orbit."

"I want my people involved." The Admiral said. "The people in the city need people they can trust down there."

"Agreed, Admiral." Picard said. "This will be difficult enough without my people having to convince the colonists that we're on their side. The _Enterprise_ will arm a combined strike-force."

"In the past energy weapons have proved ineffectual against the Replicators." Teal'c offered.

"I doubt they've encountered anything like our phasers before." Geordi said smugly. Then a though occurred to him. "But the Borg will adapt to any phaser settings pretty quickly."

"There have been indications," Data said, giving Captain Picard a meaningful look, "that more primitive projectile weapons may fall outside of the range that individual Borg drones are prepared to adapt to." Picard remembered well his experience with the drones on the holodeck. Data had read that report, and Picard had to acknowledge that he might have a point.

Jack looked at the P-90 that he still had with him. "What, these?" He looked around at his team. "I don't think we have enough to go around."

"Our replicators," Jack sort of jumped at the word but didn't say anything, "can fix that." LaForge said. "But we'll need someone to train the people going down there in how to use them."

"Teal'c and I can do that." Jack said. "But I don't suppose you have a firing range or anything on this ship where we'd do all of this."

Geordi smiled. "Oh, I think we can figure something out." They'd put the holodecks to good use.

"Ok," Picard said, energized by the fact that they finally had a plan of action, "it's settled. Admiral, select your people, as many as you can spare. We will do the same. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c will train them on these weapons. I will have Commander Worf assign each of them a phaser sidearm and go through basic instruction for their operation. Major Carter will work with our engineers and your weapons' specialists to prepare your warheads for deployment on the Borg ships, and we'll have engineers transferred to your ships to install and operate our transporter systems. I think we should begin immediately."

"Agreed, Captain." The Admiral replied as he began to rise from his chair.

The entire table began to rise, almost everyone had a lot of work to do and was eager to begin. Daniel approached Admiral Adama. "Admiral, I have to say that I find your culture and its history fascinating. If you don't mind, I'd like to accompany you back to your ship."

The Admiral was a little bit surprised, but he didn't see any harm. Jackson seemed like a capable, intelligent man. "You're welcome to, Dr. Jackson. I'm sure my people will have just as many questions for you as you do for us."

Troi offered to escort Daniel and the Colonials, including Tyrol and Starbuck, to the transporter room, although Adama wanted to first make a stop in sickbay to check in on his old friend.

Jack wasn't surprised at Daniel's request. He'd heard enough of the Colonial's history to know that it would draw Daniel's interest. He didn't object. LaForge and Data approached the rest of SG-1. "If you'll come with us, I'll get one of my engineers working on replicating more of these weapons and showing you the holodecks. Then Major Carter and I can get started on the bombs."

"Sounds good." Jack replied, and the four of them started walking toward the door.

In the meantime Geordi went back to talking with Sam. "I was thinking about what you told us about these Replicators." He ventured. "You said that each of the individual blocks is connected to the others by some sort of network?"

"Yes," she told him, "it allows the blocks to combine to form any number of different shapes."

"We might be able to come up with something that would disrupt the network." Geordi said, excitedly, "If we can stop the blocks from communicating with each other, then they wouldn't be a threat." The discussion continued out into the corridor while a rather less interested Jack and Teal'c followed a few of steps behind.

Picard waited until everyone else was gone to take a deep breath. It was a daring plan, but he was confident in his people. However, something was bothering him. It almost all seemed too coincidental, too convenient, despite the fact that the situation was rather inconvenient for all involved. He couldn't exactly put his finger on it, but something about the whole thing nagged at him. In the end he decided to ignore it and headed for the bridge. Everything felt better when he was on the bridge.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 7. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review. 


	8. Chapter 8: Ambiguous Victories

We're Boned! We're Boned!  
Part 8: Ambiguous Victories 

"Carter!" Sam turned around to see Colonel Jack O'Neill walk into engineering. She and the _Enterprise_'s chief engineer, Geordi LaForge, had just spent the last few hours creating and improving weapons for the assault on New Caprica. "Have you seen the holo-thingies they have?" Jack asked as he walked up to Carter. "I could have some fun with one of those." Sam had heard about the holodecks. She had to admit that she could think of a few good programs to try, but she suspected that the Colonel had a different idea of fun than she did.

Jack looked at the console in front of Carter and LaForge, who was running a few scans of the item sitting on it. It appeared to be a standard-issue P-90. "So what have you guys got for us?" The Colonel asked.

LaForge fielded the question by lifting the P-90 and handing it to O'Neill. "For the most part it's the same as the weapons you're used to, same weight, etc."

Jack lifted the weapon and turned it over in his hands. It was normal as far as he could tell, but he was sure that there was something else coming. "But," He prompted.

"But," LaForge picked up, "we've installed a micro-replicator in the rear of the magazine, here." Geordi pointed to the spot. Jack didn't notice anything different, but he decided he'd take the engineer's word for it, and he just nodded. "It should be able to synthesize new projectiles at the same rate that the weapon can expend them."

Jack looked at the gun for a moment and then back at LaForge. "And that means?"

Geordi was a little taken aback, and he looked to Carter for assistance. She jumped in. "Infinite ammo, sir."

Jack looked at the gun again, now with admiration. "Sweet." The Colonel had spent the last several hours with Teal'c training the people from the Battlestars and the _Enterprise_ on the use of the P-90s and getting training in the use of the phasers that everyone was being issued as a side-arm. The others had become very proficient with the P-90s very quickly. Jack had been surprised at how easily they took to it. The _Enterprise_ security officers, especially, seemed like nice sophisticated future people, but underneath it they were well-trained soldiers, many of them battle-hardened, from the stories they told. He felt confident going into battle accompanied by the people he'd just trained with. As confident as he could feel, anyway, considering the strange array of enemies they were up against.

They'd also all been assigned communicator pins of the same style that the _Enterprise_ crew all wore. He had his stuck just below his radio. The crew had assured him that the radios SG-1 used wouldn't be necessary with the communicators, but it just didn't feel right without it.

Jack put the gun back down. "How are the nukes coming?"

"Geordi was able to synthesize enough naquedah to enhance all of the warheads that they had aboard the Battlestars."

Jack noticed that she and LaForge were now on a first name basis, but he decided not to say anything. "All of them?"

"We don't know how many Borg ships they might run into." Geordi said. He'd already had this discussion with his captain. Admiral Adama, of course, had had no objection to the procedure. "We usually don't see more than one cube at a time, but we know that there are at least two waiting at New Caprica. Better safe than sorry."

"Right." Jack said, in the tone that he used when someone told him something that should probably have been obvious.

"Captain, the engineering crews aboard _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ report that the transporter installation is complete." Data reported.

"Excellent, thank you, Mr. Data." Picard then turned to Worf at tactical. "Hail _Galactica_, Commander."

"Captain Picard." Admiral Adama's gruff voice came over the ships comm. system.

"Admiral," Picard replied, "are your people prepared?"

The turbolift doors opened at that moment revealing Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, and Will Riker. Riker took his customary seat while Jack and Teal'c stood at the back of the bridge, taking it all in.

"We are." Adama's voice confirmed. "Is Colonel O'Neill present?"

"I'm here." Jack responded, a little bit surprised at the question.

"Dr. Jackson has expressed a desire to remain aboard _Galactica_. I am inclined to let him. It will be helpful to have someone on board who is familiar with the Replicators." The Admiral didn't mention the positive effect that the presence of an actual human from Earth seemed to be having on the crew.

Jack didn't have any particular objection to the proposal. He was sure Daniel was having the time of his life with a new culture to immerse himself in. "If Daniel wants to ride it out over there, I don't have a problem with it."

"Thank you, Colonel." Adama said. "Now, Captain Picard, is everything ready on your end?"

"We're set, Admiral."

"Then we'll follow your lead."

"Understood, Admiral. Good luck."

"To you as well, Captain."

Adama placed the receiver back on the console and looked around the CIC. The crew was determined, but a pallor seemed to hang over the entire ship. They wanted to rescue their friends and family on New Caprica, but they were going into battle with an untested strategy against not only the Cylons but two alien races that seemed unbelievably more powerful. The crews of the Battlestars were used to going up against seemingly insurmountable odds and coming out ahead, but they'd never faced anything quite this ┘ alien before. The Admiral understood their feelings. He felt it himself, but he could not, would not show it.

Adama saw the _Enterprise_ disappear from DRADIS. "The _Enterprise_ is away, Admiral."

"Spool up the FTL drive, and begin the countdown." He commanded.

The plan was pretty straight-forward. The _Enterprise_ couldn't make the trip to New Caprica instantaneously like the Battlestars could. So the Federation ship set off first. After a few minutes the Battlestars would activate their FTLs and jump into orbit around the besieged planet. They timed it so that Picard's ship would arrive moments later, but it would hold position outside the nebula until it received a narrow-band transmission from the Admiral, either confirming the destruction of the Borg cubes or alerting them that something had gone wrong. A Raptor that had been sent in to perform reconnaissance had already confirmed that the only ships still in orbit of the planet were the two cubes.

If the destruction of the cubes went as planned the _Enterprise_ was to come in, and a large, well-armed strike force would begin beaming from the three ships to the planet's surface. As soon as they were down the two Battlestars and the Sovereign-class ship would begin beaming the thousands of residents off of the planet. The ships on the surface that were still space worthy (a dubious prospect considering that the surface was also home to Cylons, Borg, and Replicators, any one of whom might easily cannibalize any of the ships for their own purposes) would be marshaled and packed with as many people as they would hold. The remaining civilian ships, in hiding up to this point, had been alerted and were ready to jump in and take on passengers if the situation would allow. Once the colony had been completely evacuated (no easy feat, considering that there were between 30 and 40 thousand colonists on the planet), and the strike force beamed back to one of the ships, the _Enterprise_ would bombard New Caprica City from orbit, hopefully wiping out any remaining threat from the three enemy powers that had installed themselves on the surface.

That was how the plan was supposed to go. However, everyone involved was painfully aware that plans like this rarely went the way they were supposed to. In fact, Jack O'Neill had felt it prudent to remind both the Captain and the Admiral of that on more than one occasion during the final planning session.

Grant Apolinar, "Archer," was once again strapped into the cockpit of his Viper, waiting to find out whether or not he was going to launch. If everything went as planned, there would be no need for the Battlestars to launch their Vipers, but in the event that there was some fighting that needed to be done, the colonial Vipers were in the tubes and ready to launch as soon as the order came.

Archer hoped it wouldn't be necessary. The last battle had not gone well for _Pegasus_' Red Squadron. They'd lost their two best pilots, and now Archer was on the top of the totem pole. He'd been lucky in every engagement he'd been in. He was sure of it. The CAG had told Grant that he was a good pilot, that he just needed to believe in himself. Archer didn't believe him for a second. He knew it wasn't skill or talent or any of that other stuff that had kept him alive through so many close calls. It was dumb luck. And what was more, he knew that dumb luck didn't last. No matter what the CAG said to him, he went into every battle convinced that this was the time that he wouldn't come back.

These were the kind of thoughts that Archer always had while sitting on the deck or in the tube. The thoughts that came with waiting. Once his plane was in space not dying kept him too busy to worry about things like that. This time, if he was lucky, he'd be allowed to sit and wallow in his own self-doubt and fear all day long. As much as he hated the waiting he much preferred it to launching against an alien mystery fleet.

Anastasia Dualla Adama, "Dee," watched as the engineers from the _Enterprise_ got the first nuke into position on the trasporter pad. She stood against the wall, just observing, arms crossed tightly, shifting her weight from one leg to the other every few moments, never seeming quite comfortable with herself or the situation that she found herself in. Dee was the _Pegasus_' XO, as well as the wife of its commander, Lee Adama. And she was watching the Federation engineers with a degree of skepticism.

Dee wasn't skeptical of the effectiveness of the _Enterprise_'s technology or her crew. She'd seen those work impressively both in and out of battle. She wasn't even especially skeptical of their intentions. She'd had some doubts initially. Even now they nibbled at the back of her mind, telling her that these complete strangers were gaining access and influence with the colonial leaders far too quickly. However, she'd seen the _Enterprise_ crew keep their end of the agreement, and she'd seen that they were powerful enough not to need the crew of the Battlestars for anything, anything except this. The fact that their usefulness in this battle stemmed from them not being powerful enough to pose a threat was somewhat disconcerting, but she'd accepted it. What she really felt unsure about was whether or not they were going to be effective.

The whole plan, the survival of what remained of the 12 colonies, hinged on the Battlestars managing to destroy any Borg ships. If the Borg were so powerful that even the crew of the Federation ship was afraid to take them on, what chance did the Battlestars have? What chance did the human race have?,

Those were the thoughts running through Dualla's mind as she watched the men in the gold uniforms prepare the first nuke for deployment and recheck the settings on large circular transporter pad. She turned and left the room. She had to find Lee and talk to him about her concerns. They couldn't hang the survival of the human race on a thread this thin. There had to be another way

A buzzer sounded in the CIC. It was time. "Jump." Adama said firmly, and both of the Colonial ships disappeared in a flash of light.

Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, and about two dozen people were standing in one of the _Enterprise_'s cargo bays. The combined strike force was separated into several smaller groups, each gathered in a different part of the ship and each with a designated beam-in site on the planet below. When the time came the large cargo transporters would initiate a site-to-site transport of all the people in the cargo to their beam-in sites. Then they would engage the enemy on the ground, giving the ships in orbit time to get the civilians off the planet. It was a bold plan. Which also meant that it was an incredibly dangerous one, just the sort of thing that Jack was used to. He reflected momentarily on what exactly it said about his life that "beaming" down to an alien planet to fight an army or robots, bugs, and Swedish robo-zombies was the kind of thing he was used to, but he decided it was best not to dwell.

"Whadya think, T?"

Teal'c gave Jack one of his stoic looks. The stoic look being differentiated from the amused, irritated, confident, and hungry looks by only the slightest of muscular contractions. Differences that Jack was completely oblivious to. "The proposed strategy is ┘ ambitious."

"Ambitious. Right. I feel much better now."

Jack was about to push his inquiries a bit further when two familiar faces appeared coming out of the crowd. "Colonel O'Neill!" Worker's Union President Galen Tyrol and Captain Kara Thrace approached the two members of SG-1.

Jack was a bit taken aback by the cordiality with which the colonials greeted them. It was something he wasn't quite used to from them. He extended his hand when he saw that Tyrol's was already out. "Chief Tyrol, Captain Thrace, you're looking well┘" he noticed the P-90s they both had and the phasers strapped to their hips, "armed."

"You're not the only ones that get to lead a team down there to frak up some toasters." Starbuck said, hefting her weapon appreciatively. "We'll get to the hold point in a few minutes, but we thought we'd come down and wish you luck."

"Well," Jack said, the confusion clear in his voice, "that's ┘ mighty neighborly of you."

"And┘" Starbuck prompted, looking at the Chief.

"And," Tyrol continued, "I want to apologize for the whole wanting to kill you thing when we were down on the planet." Tyrol's eyes were downcast. Jack looked even more confused at the sudden apology and looked over to Starbuck who shrugged her shoulders as if to say that she didn't understand it either but that he should just go with it. "It's just I've been under a lot of stress lately. I didn't even realize how much, but that doesn't make what I did right."

"Well┘" Jack said again, "look, don't worry about it. It happens all the time┘" He looked to Teal'c who nodded his affirmation, "depressingly enough." He clapped Tyrol on the shoulder and began walking him back toward the entrance to the cargo bay. "I've met a lot of great people who started off by pointing a gun at me. Met some rather unpleasant people that way too, you understand. Oh, I could tell you stories."

"We've reached the hold point, Captain." Ensign Peters declared from the conn.

"All stop, Ensign." Picard stood up, looking at the clouds filling most of the viewscreen. Then he addressed Data. "Can we get any reading from within the nebula?"

"Nothing conclusive, Captain."

"It's up to the Admiral's people now." Riker declared from his seat near the Captain's chair.

"It would appear so, Number One." Picard replied, falling back into his seat. "Let's hope they don't run into any surprises."

When the Battlestars arrived in orbit around New Caprica at the end of their FTL jump the engineers from the _Enterprise_ had orders to immediately engage the transporter cycle. The tricky part had been patching in the DRADIS system to use for to feed coordinates to the transporters. In the end they'd been forced to install small targeting sensors on the outside of the Battlestars so that the people operating the trasporters could get a quick lock on the Borg ships. It was hoped that even if the additional sensors were noticed by the Borg, it wouldn't be in time to do anything about it.

"Nukes away!" a voice announced from somewhere in the CIC. William Adama watched the DRADIS screen, two huge indicators marked the location of the Borg ships. A moment passed, no one in the CIC even daring to breath. Then the enemy ships on the DRADIS blinked out of existence and a cheer went up.

"Signal the _Enterprise_," Adama ordered. "And begin transporting our teams to the planet." They'd won a victory, but the he knew the harder battle was still to come.

Not far from the Battlestars the remains of two Borg cubes floated silently through space, many of them falling prey to gravity and moving inexorably toward the atmosphere of New Caprica. Drones who had somehow managed to survive the catastrophic destruction of their ships now faced the friction of re-entry into the atmosphere and were destroyed by the merciless laws of physics.

A few moments later Picard's ship arrived in orbit of New Caprica and the liberation, or more precisely, the evacuation of the planet was begun in earnest.

Colonel Jack O'Neill and his team materialized on the planet somewhere on the outskirts of New Caprica City. The citadel loomed before them, intimidating in the center of the city. On this occasion O'Neill's team was a bit different than what he was used to. Along with Teal'c there were ten security officers from the Enterprise, already setting up into a defensive perimeter. There were also several colonials from _Pegasus_. No _Galactica_ people had been assigned to his team. Daniel was still with the Admiral on his Battlestar, and Carter had stayed behind in engineering with LaForge, working on something that she seemed to think would be incredibly useful.

The general principle of their mission was simple enough. Teams had been set down all around the outskirts of the city. They were to slowly move toward the citadel in the center. Any colonists were to be sent outside of the city or loaded onto any landed ship that could still fly. At the same time the enemy was supposed to be pushed inward toward the citadel, gathering them all in one spot and making an easy job for the _Enterprise_ when the time came to waste the bad guys from orbit. Jack had the feeling that it was going to be a little more difficult than it sounded.

Jack took it as a good sign that there weren't any bugs or robots or zombies immediately visible upon their arrival, and he signaled his team to begin moving. Most of the structures were tents or small shanties that appeared to be built from scrap metal. None of which would provide a whole lot of cover when a firefight broke out. The only bright side, and it was a rather dim one at that, was that lack of cover was an impairment that affected both sides.

They rounded the first tent with military efficiency. Two of the colonial officers checked the inside while the rest kept watch, weapons at the ready. The tent was empty. Jack noticed that the entire city seemed to be filled with an other-worldly quiet, appropriate considering it was another world. Suddenly somewhere in the distance he heard the familiar sound of automatic weapons fire. Now it had really started.

Worf was in command of his own team on the surface. A team stocked with top security officers from the _Enterprise_. He didn't know a lot of them. It had been quite some time since he'd been the ship's chief of security. He did, however, have full confidence in them. All of them had seen ground combat in the Dominion War and had come out of it with honor.

Worf's team had very quickly made contact with the enemy. A group of seven Borg drones appeared to be rounding up colonists to take to the citadel. For some reason that Worf couldn't immediately comprehend they did not appear to have begun the assimilation process yet, which, to Worf, simply meant that they would have to be a little more cautious during their engagement. Civilian casualties were not acceptable.

The Borg hadn't spotted his team. Worf took the initiative and was the first person to open fire. The P-90 still felt strange to him, but a moment later over a dozen bullets had imbedded themselves inside the nearest drone. It fell to the grounds immobile, never having even heard the shot that killed it. The other drones quickly turned to confront the aggressors.

Meanwhile the colonists, already petrified by the ordeal they'd been undergoing, used the moment of distraction to begin running in all directions. The Borg weren't particularly inviting, but the large Klingon blasting away in their general direction wasn't a whole lot better. This had the effect of forcing the _Enterprise_ personnel to stop firing until the civilians were out of the way. The remaining drones took the opportunity to close the distance between themselves and their attackers.

Worf quickly switched the setting on the weapon, as he'd been shown to do, from automatic fire to three-round burst fire. The rest of his team followed suit, and the remaining Borg were quickly dispatched with precision bursts to the head or the center mass. By the time they were all on the ground, the colonists had disappeared. Worf set his P-90 back on automatic fire. He was starting to like these primitive weapons. There was a certain visceral pleasure that a phaser didn't provide. It was more like using a bladed weapon. Then Worf heard a sound, quickly spinning around he saw a drone standing just feet from him. He brought up his weapon and began firing. The drone was cut practically in half by the stream of bullets. Worf was definitely beginning to like these projectile weapons. Now they had to begin looking for colonists. He was worried that after what they'd just witnessed many of them would be wary of his team.

Most of the ships that had landed were in the center of the city. However one or two were further out. It was one of these that Starbuck and Tyrol came to with their team. It was a relatively small ship. Before the attack on the colonies it had probably been some rich family's personal toy, the FTL drive that saved it and the people inside an expensive status symbol, something for them to brag about to other rich people who hadn't splurged on such a seemingly useless and incredibly pricey accessory. But it looked intact, and if it could get off the ground it could easily carry dozens of people to safety.

The team positioned themselves around the hatch, prepared to fire if an enemy appeared in the opening. Tyrol reached up and swung the hatch open. Everyone immediately tensed up, on the knife's edge between danger and safety. Nothing. Two people darted in quickly, weapons aimed down the corridor in opposite directions.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Most of the team followed them in while Tyrol directed one of the _Enterprise_ security officers and one of his own men to stand guard outside the hatch. The men took up their positions, and Tyrol followed the rest of the team into the ship. The began walking down the corridor toward the front of the ship, the place that the command deck would presumably be located, with Starbuck in the lead. They walked for a couple of minutes down the long barren corridor. No doors, no panels, just smooth bulkhead. Suddenly she held up her fist, signaling everyone to stop.

Starbuck cocked her head, apparently listening for something. "Does anybody else hear that?"

Now everyone listened. There was a vague noise, coming from somewhere within the ship. "Someone on board?" One of the guys asked.

"I don't think so," Starbuck said. "That's a metallic sound."

"Is the ship being brought online?" Someone else asked. "Maybe one of the other teams got here before we did."

"That's not the ship." Tyrol said, decidedly. They all listened again for a moment. "It's getting closer."

"Metallic and moving closer." Starbuck said out loud. She thought for a moment, and then cast a worried glance at everyone else, wondering if they'd come to the same conclusion.

The chief nodded, same look on his face. "Centurions."

"Frak us." Starbuck swore. "Ok, take up positions." They were completely exposed and trapped in the middle of an empty corridor, sitting ducks, but they couldn't risk running for either end. There was no telling where and when the Cylons would come around the corner. At least they were going to have the element of surprise. If there weren't too many toasters they might even make it.

Starbuck tensed up, crouched on the ground and in a position to turn the corridor ahead of her into a hailstorm of bullets. The hatchway they'd come in through was just visible far down the passage. They didn't even risk making a run for that. Being caught unawares and vulnerable if the Cylons suddenly appeared in front of or behind them would mean the deaths of everyone on the team.

The sound was growing closer and more distinct every second. They were just on the other side of the wall now. Everyone fingered the triggers of their weapons. It would be starting any moment, but there was still no way to tell which direction it would come from.

Something hit Galen Tyrol in the head. "What the┘" It looked like a rock. He looked up. It was a piece of the wall. He could see a hole where it had fallen out, and then he realized that the hole was getting bigger. He jumped away from the hole and swung his gun around. "They're coming through the wall!"

Everyone swung around to look. Then they all moved away from the ever-widening hole. "It's like something is eating through." Someone said. Then something came through the hole and dropped onto the floor. It looked for all the world like a huge metal spider.

"Replicators!" Starbuck declared. She raised her rifle.

Tyrol reached out and pushed the muzzle of her gun back down. "We can't use the P-90s in here!" He called out to everyone. "Bullets would bounce around everywhere, and we'd end up shooting at each other."

"Phasers!" a voice called out. It was a security officer from the _Enterprise_, Lieutenant Drew. He pulled his phaser and everyone else followed suit. He let off a blast on the highest setting. About half a dozen replicator blocks were ionized where the beam hit. However, it didn't seem to have much of an effect on the mechanical bug which just kept moving. Then several beams lanced out at once, hitting the replicator across its whole body. After the burst was over a few remaining blocks dropped to the deck, seemingly impotent.

It was another good-news, bad-news situation. A combination of several simultaneous phaser blasts could destroy a replicator. But the hole had continued to widen and several more bugs had dropped to the deck. They saw the remaining pieces from the first enemy combine with the new arrivals. They didn't have enough phasers or enough time to take them all out.

"Keep firing!" The security officer called out. Beams flew at the bugs from both sides, hurting them, but not holding off their advance. Lieutenant Drew took a moment to make an adjustment to his weapon. Then he fired again. He'd widened the beam, spread the energy impact out over a larger area. The beam connected with several replicators. It knocked them backwards for a moment, but they were otherwise undamaged.

The replicators were swarming the corridor, moving in both directions, moving the two halves of their opposition further and further from each other. Everyone knew that things were hopeless unless something changed. Starbuck, Tyrol, and one other man stood on the side of the swarm that led back to the hatch they'd come in through. Drew and several others were on the side that led to the command deck. "We have to use the P-90s!" Drew called out, becoming less audible over the ever-increasing number of replicators. "The three of you get outside! Then we can fire without hitting you!"

Kara and Galen looked at each other, the third man already starting to move back toward the exit. They didn't like the idea of leaving, but there wasn't any other way, and everyone knew it. So they turned and ran back to the hatch as quickly as they could. Then with the help of the two men still standing outside they shut and sealed it. The sound of weapons fire was audible from within the ship for a few moments, then what Tyrol could swear was muffled screaming, then nothing.

They waited a few more moments. "Frak!" Starbuck swore and pounded on the side of the hull once with her fist. Then she looked at the others, "Ok, ship's not goin anywhere." She said matter-of-factly. "We have to move on." And they did.

Jack's team had found a couple of people. They'd sent them out of town, just like they'd been told to. Some of them had needed some convincing that waiting outside of town would help them get off the planet, but they didn't have to understand. They just had to do it. However, the team had yet to meet any opposition.

Jack had heard more weapons fire. Someone out there was in the thick of it. He risked thinking for just a moment that maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe the enemy would be so distracted fighting all over town that his team would somehow make it through almost unnoticed. He knew, of course, that it was too much to wish for, but it would certainly be a nice change of pace.

Teal'c had just come out of another tent. "There was no one." He told Jack.

So far the vast majority of the structures they examined were empty. They could only hope that it meant people had already run for the hills, instead of the alternative. The few people that they had found had mentioned people taking off, hoping to find safety in the woods or in caves, one even reported that her neighbors had mentioned something about a boat. They'd also reported people being taken by the dozens, abducted by what they assumed were Cylons, although most of them had never gotten a clear look. Hiding had been more important.

"Ok," Jack said. "Let's keep going." The Easter egg hunt from one house to the next was beginning to get tiresome. Then he heard something that stopped him in his tracks.

Jack signaled everyone to stop and be quiet. He could hear something coming. "Cylons." One of the men from _Pegasus_ hissed. Jack nodded that he understood. He listened for a moment longer, trying to judge which direction it was coming from. It was definitely getting closer. He signaled his people to take up positions around the area, directing them toward the best cover he could find. He found a spot with a direct line of site on where he thought the Cylons would be coming from and then signaled everyone to get ready and to follow his lead.

A moment later a lone Cylon came around the corner, right where Jack expected it. O'Neill let a blast fly from his P-90. Several bullets connected, but the Cylon was only stunned. None of the shots had been fatal. Jack was preparing for a second volley when a red beam lanced from somewhere to his right. The phaser blast connected with the Centurion, and it disappeared in a burst of phased energy.

Jack glanced over at the _Enterprise,_ officer who'd fired the shot. "Nice." He said, respectfully. Then he turned to Teal'c, "Was it alone?"

As if to answer his question more metallic noises became audible, in multiple directions. Teal'c answered anyway. "I do not believe so."

"Well, this is just peachy." Jack replied sourly, and he hunkered down for the next assault.

Picard walked onto the bridge from his ready room, "Report, Mr. Data."

Data didn't look up from the console. "Evacuation is on schedule, Captain. Ground teams report sporadic fighting throughout the city."

"How long until-"

"Captain!" Picard's question was interrupted. "I'm reading a disturbance in the nebula." The young lieutenant at tactical announced. "I think it's a ship." Lieutenant Briggs was one of the few security officers not to have been deployed on New Caprica. He hadn't fought in the Dominion War and had almost no combat experience, certainly not on the ground. He was much more comfortable in the safety of the starship, although that safety suddenly seemed in doubt.

"On screen."

The screen switched from a view of the planet to a view of the nebula. Everyone watched for a few seconds. Then it appeared, the demented pinwheel shape that they'd become familiar with since their arrival.

Helo spoke from the seat he'd become accustomed to occupying on the bridge of the Federation ship, "Cylons. They're moving in for an attack."

"They never learn." Riker opined. "Tactical, open fire on the Cylon vessel."

"Aye, sir." The lieutenant's fingers moved over the console, and a moment later huge ruby beams of light could be seen reaching out for the Basestar. They stopped just short, a green energy field apparently dispersing the beams.

"The Cylon ship appears to have been augmented with Borg shield technology." Data announced. Everyone had seen it, but it wasn't what anyone wanted to hear.

"I'd say things just became a good deal more interesting." Picard said grimly.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 8. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review. 


	9. Chapter 9: We Are So Boned!

We're Boned!

Part 9: We are so boned! 

"Shields up!" Picard ordered, "and hail _Galactica_."

A moment later the Admiral's voice came over the comm. "Captain, we've monitored the situation. Apparently we're not the only ones who have learned some new tricks from our allies."

"So it would appear." Picard agreed. Before the Captain could continue, Briggs, from his tactical console, interrupted again.

"Captain, the Basestar is deploying Raiders."

Then Data chimed in. "The Raiders do not appear to be shielded, Captain."

"Thank you, Mr. Data." Then, to Adama, "Admiral, the _Enterprise_ cannot continue transporting refugees from the planet while our shields are raised. So we will break orbit and intercept the Basestar. I suggest your ships remain around the planet to continue the evacuation."

"Agreed, Captain. And don't worry about the Raiders. I'm ordering our Vipers to deploy as we speak. Take care of the Basestar. We'll do the rest. Adama out."

"Helm, move us into a position between the Basestar and the Colonial ships."

"Captain," Data began, "if the new shields on the Cylon vessel are of Borg design, modulating the phaser frequencies might be effective against them."

Since they'd first discovered the usefulness of rotating phaser frequencies in encounters with the Borg, all phasers from the handheld units to those installed on a starship, had been designed with a setting that allowed for frequency rotation.

"Agreed. Make the necessary adjustments, Mr. Data."

Data's fingers were already moving quickly across his console. "Completed, sir."

"Tactical, fire." Phaser blasts reached across the void, pounding against the Cylon ship. The Borg shielding appeared to absorb most of the impact. "Report!" Picard ordered.

"Enemy shields down to 75, Captain." Briggs reported. "There also appears to be some minor hull damage."

"The shielding on the Cylon vessel appears to be somewhat different from the Borg shields we have encountered in the past." Data said, with a tinge of curiosity.

"Improved?" Riker asked. The last thing they needed was for the Borg to get an upgrade.

"I would not say 'improved,' Commander, simply different. Rotating the frequency of the phasers did appear to have an effect. I recommend-"

Before Data could finish his thought, Briggs cut in, "Cylon vessel launching missiles, Captain!"

"Well, at least their weapons haven't improved." Riker said.

"Five seconds to missile impact with shields." Briggs reported. Then, five seconds later, several explosions could be seen on the viewscreen. Inside the _Enterprise_ the explosive assault on their shields was not even felt.

"Captain!" There was urgency in Briggs' voice, "one of the missiles has penetrated our shields!"

"What?!" Riker exclaimed.

Captain Picard pushed a control on the arm of the Captain's chair. "All hands, brace for impact-" Before he could finish the ship gave a slight shudder. Then nothing. He let go of the control. "Mr. Data?"

"Hull breach on deck 20. There was no detonation, but the impact damaged internal sensors in that section. I can not get an accurate reading on the object."

"Maybe the warhead malfunctioned?" Riker offered.

"Maybe it was never meant to explode." Worry had crept into the Captain's voice. "How did it get through our shields?"

Data replied, "Unknown, sir."

"We may have been boarded." Normally Picard would have sent a large security contingent to check the impact site. Unfortunately most of his security personnel were currently on the planet, a decision he was beginning to regret. Fortunately he had someone else just as capable as an entire squad of other officers and who could, if the need arose, survive in a vacuum, a skill that could prove necessary depending on the state of the mysterious object and the hull. "Mr. Data, I want you to take a team and find out what it is that is sticking into the side of my ship. Lieutenant Briggs, continue firing."

"Yes, sir." They both replied. Data got up and left the bridge.

Archer was launching, and he wasn't particularly thrilled about it. Of course as soon as he was out of the tube he was in control. He was calm, but he still had that nagging feeling that he wasn't coming back this time. Not that he didn't have the same feeling every time.

He looked ahead of him. A whole slew of approaching Raiders, but behind them he caught sight of it. The alien ship, the ship he now knew was called _Enterprise_, it really was beautiful. He'd only caught a glimpse of it during his last battle, as it saved his life. Now he could see it going head to head with a Basestar.

Being the squadron leader came with some perks. He'd heard all the details about the plan. He'd heard about the alien ship shredding Basestars like paper. He kept thinking of them as aliens, but he'd also heard that most of them were human, and from Earth, no less. It was like a miracle, and they were good people. He'd heard how much they'd helped the Colonials and how they'd gone to a lot of trouble to help liberate New Caprica. And they were still doing it.

All those thoughts went through his mind, and his confidence rose. If they could take out lines of Basestars and fleets of Raiders, Archer could hardly hesitate to do his own part. Deep inside he'd always known he could do it. He'd just needed something inspiring to bring it out, and he'd found just what he needed.

"Let's do it." He said quietly to himself. He took his eyes off the _Enterprise_ and looked to the approaching Raiders. He knew he was coming back this time, and he was going to splash a whole lot of toasters before he did. He found a Raider coming straight for him and got a bead on it. He squeezed on the trigger. Shots went just a bit to the right. One more tiny adjustment and it would be over for another machine. The Cylon started firing, but Archer knew he was capable of avoiding the fire while still staying on target.

Then Archer's ship made a noise he'd never heard before. He looked up to see where it had come from. The clear canopy of the Viper had three tiny holes in it. The glass was broken, and cracks began to spread as air started to hiss out. It took a moment for it to sink in. He'd been hit. And the Raider was still firing. Archer reached for the ejection control. He never made it. Grant Apolinar, "Archer" finished his Viper pilot career in a quick burst of fire, like so many pilots before him.

Geordi LaForge and Samantha Carter were still in main engineering, staring at the objects on the scanning console. They'd been able to convince Captain Picard to use a moment of the precious transporter time to beam up some samples. That was, of course, before the shields had gone up.

Lieutenant Commander Data was walking down a corridor on deck 20. He'd brought two other officers with him, but he'd told them to wait behind an emergency force field a section back. The internal sensors near the site of the impact had been disabled. There was no way to tell for sure that all the emergency force fields were working, and if they weren't it would be prudent for him to go in first to find out. He held his tricorder out in front of him, scanning the passage, a phaser at his waist.

"So do you think it will work?" Carter asked.

"The theory is sound," Geordi replied, "but it would be nice if we had something a little more substantial than these two blocks to test it on."

Data rounded a corner and saw the hull breach, a hole about two meters across. He could see the nebula in the distance. The emergency force fields appeared to be working. The section of corridor with the breach was book-ended by blue force fields. He was about to call the others when he noticed something. Whatever it was that had breached the hull was no longer there, at least not that he could see. He decided to take a closer look. "Computer," he said, "activate emergency force field, deck 20, section D." Another blue field flickered into life just behind him. Then he got a grip on a part of the bulkhead to secure himself for the next phase. "Computer, override safety. Deactivate emergency force field, deck 20, section E, authorization Data, 3, 5, pi, zeta, epsilon."

The computer beeped to acknowledge the order and the blue field in front of him winked out of existence. There was a quick rush of air as the atmosphere in the section Data was occupying was sucked out of the hole in the hull. After it was over Data let go of the bulkhead and walked to the breach. He examined the damage. Something had obviously pushed from the outside to the inside, but he couldn't see anything. He poked his head a foot out of the hole. The outer hull of the Enterprise showed no sign of anything, other than the large hole.

"Bad idea." Sam said. Geordi had heard this liturgy before. "That was the exact mistake that the Asgard made that started it all in the first place. A few blocks are harmless. They can't come together to make anything useful, but as soon as you let too many of them get together things get out of control very quickly."

Data pulled his tricorder out again, and he began scanning the area. The readings seemed normal. Then suddenly he noticed an anomaly. He tapped a few more controls, trying to isolate it. Data was in a complete vacuum, nothing to carry sound. So he didn't hear them. However he could feel them.

A replicator dropped from the ceiling onto Data's shoulder. In a move faster than any human would have been capable of he knocked it off of his shoulder and drew his phaser. He recognized the creature from SG-1's description. He quickly dialed his phaser up to the highest setting. A single blast destroyed several of the replicator's blocks, but not enough to disable it. It took several more blasts before there wasn't enough of it left to continue, but by now more of them were dropping from the ceiling to the floor.

"Our force fields should be able to hold one." Geordi assured her.

"That's what the Asgard thought."

Data began to back away. He tapped his communicator badge to order the computer to re-establish the emergency force field. No atmosphere, no sound. His voice couldn't make it to the computer. He pulled out his tricorder and began to enter commands with one hand while he continued firing with inhuman speed and accuracy at the growing number of bug-like creatures and managing to hold them off.

"Ok, ok. You win. We can't beam any more up right now anyway. So we've got a wave that we think will sever the connections between blocks. What's the next step?"

"Can we weaponize it?" Sam asked. "Make it into something man-portable that we could send down to the planet to help them fight the replicators?"

"We probably could," then Geordi appeared to gain some new insight, "but maybe we don't need to."

Data sent orders through the tricorder to reactivate the emergency force field and then repressurize the section of corridor he was in. He quickly tapped his communicator. "Data to bridge. The ship has been boarded by replicators. They have already begun using parts of the _Enterprise_ to replicate." Data could see them apparently consuming part of the bulkhead to create new blocks.

Geordi was getting excited. "If we could adjust the ship's main deflector dish to emit the wave that we've developed we could broadcast it on a large scale."

"How large a scale?" Sam asked.

"Large enough to cover the entire planet."

"So we could neutralize all of the replicators on the planet by severing the ties that link the individual blocks together all at the same time!"

"Just like jamming the enemy's communications, but a good deal more effective." Now they were both excited. "We'll have to go to deflector control, and it will take a lot of modification, but-"

"Bridge to engineering." Picard's voice came over the comm. system.

LaForge tapped his comm. badge. "Go ahead, sir."

"Commander, Mr. Data reports that replicators have boarded the _Enterprise_."

Carter looked shocked. It had never occurred to her that it might happen. Although, she chided herself, it should have. Replicators always looked for the most advanced technology they could find. The _Enterprise_ must have looked incredibly appetizing.

"I think we've got something that can help, Captain." LaForge said. "But it will take us an hour or more to get it ready."

"Data may not have that long, Commander. He's activated the emergency force fields for two decks and two sections in every direction to prevent the Replicators from spreading through the rest of the ship. He and a dozen other crewmen are trapped within the area that was sealed off."

Geordi knew what that meant. SG-1 had told them that the Replicators were attracted to technology, and there was probably very little on the _Enterprise_ more advanced than Data. "Understood, Captain. We'll have something for you soon."

Carter watched, letting him think it through for a moment. The Chief Engineer took a deep breath. "Ok, looks like we're weaponizing this after all. We just need to decide on the best way to do it."

Fortunately for Data he didn't get tired. The Replicators had somehow managed to make their way into the part of the corridor he was in, despite the fact that it was surrounded by force fields. He'd spent just over a minute shooting them as quickly as he could, but they just kept coming. At one point he'd taken a moment to switch to a wider beam setting. It had been a costly mistake. The wider beam wasn't powerful enough to destroy the blocks. So he had to switch back. The switches had cost him several precious feet of ground. The Replicators were slowly but surely making their way closer to him, and there didn't seem to be anything he could do. They were almost to his feet now, and no matter how quickly he was able to fight them off there were always more. He knew that it was a bad sign that this many Replicators were already on board. He also knew that he wasn't going to be able to hold them off for much longer. His only hope was that there was help on its way.

"Bridge to Data."

"Data here." Thanks to his ability to deactivate his emotions Data's voice was as calm as at any other time, but the nearly constant phaser fire was certainly audible and expressed the situation better than anything else could.

"Commander LaForge informs me that they have developed something to combat the Replicators. However it may take as much as an hour to deploy." There was silence for a moment. They both knew that the statement was quite likely a death sentence. "They're aware of your situation, Commander. And every effort is being made."

"Understood. Thank you, Captain. I will do my best to control the situation here."

"Good luck, Mr. Data."

"Thank you, sir."

After the communicator signal cut off Data took a few milliseconds to mull over his various options. He wouldn't be able to hold off the advancing bug horde for much longer, certainly not an hour. There were just too many. And he couldn't, he wouldn't let them take him. There was no telling what information they'd be able to gather after assimilating, for lack of a better word, his neural net into their structure. He also had a duty to destroy as many of them as he could. There really was only one option. Data stopped firing. The bugs were on him almost immediately, crawling up his legs and beginning to gnaw in. He quickly flipped open a panel on the phaser and made the necessary changes. The tell-tale whine of a phaser set to overload filled the area. Fortunately the Replicators wouldn't figure out what the sound meant until it was too late.

Jack's team was approaching the center of the city. Ahead lay a small fleet of landed ships. Some looked intact, others appeared to have been cannibalized, presumably to construct some of the more stable structures. Jack was down to a 3-man team. Teal'c and one of the security officers from the _Enterprise_. There had been a casualty or two, but mostly he'd lost them to attrition. As they encountered larger groups of colonists Jack would send one of his team to escort them out of the city, in case they'd missed any enemies on the way in. The rest of the team would push forward.

They'd encountered some stiff resistance, but it had been dealt with, and they'd learned some valuable lessons. The P-90s were somewhat effective against the Centurions, pretty good against Replicators, and perfect for Borg drones. Meanwhile the phasers were useless against the Borg, slightly less effective than P-90s against the Replicators, and worked like magic against Centurions.

The team came up to one of the ships. Suddenly the hatch flew open and two people jumped out, slamming it closed behind them. It was Tyrol and Starbuck. They seemed out of breath, leaning against the side of the now sealed hatch. Neither seemed to have noticed the three men already standing outside the ship.

"Chief, Captain," Jack said, by way of greeting. The two colonial officers raised their weapons in surprise. Then they noticed who it was. "Having problems?" Jack asked.

"Replicators." Starbuck said. Jack took an involuntary step back. "They're inside all the ships."

"At least all the ones we've checked so far."

"And how many is that?"

"20." Starbuck replied.

"Ah."

"This one," she said, slamming her palm against the hull, "was the Hesperus, used to be a cargo ship. Nothing but a wreck now."

"Are the Replicators attempting to activate the ships systems?" Teal'c asked. "If they were successful in piloting a fleet of ships away from this planet, this galaxy would prove easy prey."

"Not that we saw." Tyrol responded. "They were just eating the insides, making more of themselves."

"Yes." Jack said, with mock sagacity. "They do that." He looked around the area appeared empty. "Where's the rest of your team?"

"We're it." Starbuck replied. She didn't offer any more information, and Jack didn't ask.

"And you say all these ships are filled with Replicators?"

"Looks that way." Tyrol confirmed.

"Sooner we blow this place to hell the better." Jack concluded. "Ok, I guess you two are with us. Let's finish this and get the hell out of here."

Worf's team had been in combat almost constantly since their arrival. This had left very little time for their primary goal of finding the colonists and getting them out of the city. And, for the most part, the colonists they had encountered were more afraid of the Klingon than of the Cylons. He could only take solace from the fact that when they ran it was usually in the direction he wanted them to go anyway.

Mostly they'd fought the Borg. There had been a few Replicators, gnawing on some of the metallic structures, but they too had been dispatched with ease. The P-90s worked so well and were so enjoyable to use that Worf had yet to touch his phaser since their arrival.

The team of security officers came to a square surrounded by several structures. They'd fallen into something of a pattern. Worf would direct officers to each structure. Most invariably proved to be empty. While his men confirmed this Worf and another man would stand watch in the center of the square, making sure no enemies approached while they looked for any colonists still hiding in their tents or shacks.

Suddenly exclamations came from all around him and then gunfire. And it sounded somewhat different from the gunfire he'd become accustomed to. He looked in every direction, trying to pinpoint it, but it seemed to be coming from every direction at once. Suddenly it stopped. One of the tents began to open and a Centurion stepped out. Then on the opposite side of the square another one appeared. It was only then that Worf realized his horrible mistake. They'd set a trap, and he'd walked his men right into it. Now he was one of the only two left.

The Cylons opened fire. Worf dived out of the way, but his remaining teammate wasn't fast enough. Then it was just Worf. The Klingon scrambled off of the ground and sprinted for cover, firing at the nearest Cylons as he went. He was only feet from the nearest structure when he felt a sharp pain in his left leg as several bullets ripped into it. His leg gave out and he fell to the ground, his P-90 sailing away from him as he fell. He began dragging himself backward as the Cylons approached. He reached for his phaser. It was gone. It had fallen out of its holster when he first dived to avoid Cylon fire.

Worf knew he'd never get away from the Cylons, not on one leg. So he reached behind him to where he had his mek'leth strapped. With that Klingon short sword he would be ready to make his final stand. First he'd let them get close enough for him to lunge at the nearest one with his blade. He could only hope that their metal bodies had some weak point he could thrust his blade into.

Worf forced himself into a position that was half crouched half seated. His good leg was ready to send him flying at his target. One of the Cylons stopped just a foot or two in front of the Klingon warrior and raised its arm ready to fire. "Close enough." Worf said to himself.

The mixed group of five approached the Citadel and looked up at it. It was an intimidating structure. Four of them had been there before. But the last time it had been nearly pitch black and the Citadel had been not much more than a shadowy silhouette in the darkness. Looking at it in the light of day it was truly something to behold. The fact that it was constructed entirely of Replicator blocks only added to the eeriness.

"Where is everybody?" Tyrol asked.

"That's a good question." Jack agreed. "At least some of the other teams should have made it by now.

"Perhaps they were unsuccessful." Teal'c posited.

"All of them?" Starbuck asked.

"Wouldn't bode well for us, would it?' Jack said.

"It would not." Teal'c agreed.

In point of fact they were the only team to make it all the way to the center of town. But this wasn't without reason.

"I wouldn't get too close to that." Jack advised the young ensign who was scrutinizing the wall of the structure. "They're not real friendly."

"Whatever you say, Colonel." He responded.

Jack took a look around. He considered their situation for a moment. "I'm thinking maybe we should-" as if some sort of signal had been given the blocks making up the wall of the Citadel suddenly began moving, incredibly quickly. And before anyone knew what was happening the wall had expanded to encompass the whole group, and they were in a room made of Replicators. "D'oh!"

"What's going on?" Tyrol asked, beginning to get rather frustrated. "What are they trying to do? Why don't they just attack?!"

"Because," a voice said, "you have been given to me."

Blocks moved away creating a doorway at the opposite end of the room. From the doorway, dramatically backlit, came the person or thing that they'd come to know as the Borg Queen.

"That so?" Jack asked disdainfully, and without another word he and Teal'c brought up their rifles and opened fire on the Queen.

Thousands of Replicator blocks moved to intercept the bullets creating a wall between the shooters and the Queen. When they stopped firing harsh, sinister laughter echoed through the room.

"Well, that's kinda creepy."

"Indeed."

Suddenly the blocks making up the wall behind the quintet sprang to life again, this time reaching out and grabbing hold of them all, preventing them from moving an inch. The blocks extended across their bodies until only five heads and necks could be discerned coming out of the mass of blocks.

The wall safeguarding the Borg Queen dissolved away and she approached the heads, smiling smugly, several drones now walking just behind her. "Resistance," she said, as she had said millions of times before to species across the galaxy, "is futile."

Jack struggled but could not budge. He watched as one-by-one the Borg drones approached his friends and extended an arm to inject them with the nanobot things that the guys on the _Enterprise_ had warned him about. Starbuck, fighting desperately to the last, even tried to bite the drone's arm, but one quick movement and she began to convulse. You could see the microscopic robots spreading as her skin turned a sickly grey color. Colonel Jack O'Neill couldn't believe it was ending like this. He'd spent years battling and making friends with things weirder than anything a dozen science fiction writers could come up with in a year, and now he was going to be turned into a robotic zombie. He wasn't completely sure why it surprised him. He couldn't see a way out. And as the Borg reached an arm out and Jack felt the sting in his neck and the sudden burst of pain spread out from it, he started to wish that he'd stayed retired.

"Captain," the lieutenant at Ops said. She was a blonde girl, very young and not a little frightened, "We're getting reports of Replicators outside of the sealed area!"

A few minutes before they had lost contact with Commander Data, and sensors had detected an explosion in that section, but there wasn't time to mourn. "Where?" Picard asked.

"They appear to be spreading out in all directions from the hull breach. We've got reports from deck 17 to deck 24. Security reports that the phasers are only minimally effective."

Picard had been afraid of that. "I want projectile weapons distributed across the ship." Picard ordered. "But make sure the projectiles won't be able to pierce the hull." The last thing they needed was crewmen shooting holes in the ship trying to destroy the Replicators.

LaForge's communicator beeped, "Picard to engineering."

He slapped the badge, "Go ahead, Captain."

"Commander, the Replicators have penetrated the force fields. They're spreading across the ship. You can expect them to reach deck 16 within minutes."

"Understood, Captain. We're almost ready here."

"Hurry, Mr. LaForge. Picard out."

"Deck 16?" Sam asked.

"That's the deck we're on." Geordi informed her.

"Then I guess we'd better hurry." She responded.

A security officer approached them, carrying several P-90s. LaForge and Sam turned to look at him. "The phasers aren't very effective." He told them. "The Captain ordered us to distribute these to everyone, essential personnel first."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Sam said, taking the weapon. Geordi took one as well, but he set it on the console as he continued to work.

"I just need a few more minutes." Geordi said, punching controls quickly. "We should be able to use the same changes we were going to make to the main deflector to create a wave that will move through the _Enterprise_."

"And then the Replicator blocks will become inert." Sam finished.

"Exactly." Then a moment later, "What's that noise?"

Sam listened for a moment. It was faint, but she recognized it immediately. "Replicators." She said. Carter moved toward the entrance to engineering that the sounds seemed to be coming from. "Keep working." She told Geordi. "I'll hold them off."

Geordi nodded his assent and began entering commands even faster.

Sam looked down the corridor. It was empty, but the sound was getting louder. She crouched down for more stability and took aim at the bend in the corridor. They would have to come around that corner, and she would be ready for them. After just a moment the first Replicator came into view, followed by a whole lot more. Sam took aim at the first one and opened fire. It kept coming. She was shocked. She began firing non-stop, spraying bullets down the hallway. They seemed to be having no effect on the advancing hoard of bugs.

"It's not working!" She called out in dismay. The bullets seemed to be simply bouncing off. She pulled out her phaser and began firing. It wasn't especially effective, but it was better than nothing. She called to Geordi again, "Did you do something to the bullets? They're not damaging the bugs!"

Geordi was still working as quickly as he could, but he registered Sam's question. "No, nothing." He responded. Then something occurred to him. "We did change the composition a little, just so they wouldn't penetrate the ship's hull when we fired them."

_So they wouldn't penetrate the hull?_ Sam thought. It made sense, but there was something wrong. Then she realized what it was. "When the Replicators board a ship they start replicating themselves with whatever materials they can find!" Sam called out, still firing.

Geordi still didn't get it. Most of his brain power was focused on creating the wave. And there was gunfire coming from other parts of engineering now as well. They were being overrun. "So?" He asked.

"SO," Sam replied, "the materials they found were your ship! The new ones are made out of the same thing as your hull!"

It finally sank in, and it hit LaForge so hard that he paused in his work. How could they have been so stupid? He had to tell the Captain. He tapped his combadge. "LaForge to Picard!"

Picard was on the bridge waiting for the engineer to contact him, saying that the wave was ready. "Go ahead, Commander." There was a scream on the other end and then nothing. The captain tapped his combage, "Picard to LaForge." No response. "Picard to engineering." No response.

Lieutenant Briggs spoke, "Captain, we've lost contact with Deck 16."

This was becoming a little bit too similar to something he'd already experienced, and the Captain wasn't about to let it happen again. "Lieutenant," he said to Briggs, "Deploy as many men as we can to Deck 16. Make sure they all have projectile weapons. We cannot let them take Main Engineering." Not again, not this time.

A moment later, as everyone on the bridge waited for word from the security teams all the consoles on the bridge flickered and died, but within ten seconds they were back. "Ops, what just happened?" Riker asked.

"We've just lost all contact with the main computer core." The lieutenant responded. The main computer core was on deck 16 as well. Her hands ran across the console. "The secondary core has kicked in, but it looks like we've lost bridge control of some critical systems."

"What systems?" The first officer asked.

"We still have weapons, shields, and sensors." She said. "We've lost control of communications, navigation, and ┘"

"And?"

She turned her chair to look at her commanding officer, "And life support, sir."

Alarm klaxons began blaring loudly. "Atmosphere venting." The computer voice said calmly. "Complete loss of internal atmosphere in five minutes.

"How are we doing?" Lee Adama asked his wife. He'd stepped out of the CIC for a moment when the battle seemed to be dying down. Even the commander of a Battlestar had to use the head sometimes.

"The Vipers have pretty much taken care of the Raiders." His second in command/wife replied. "But we lost a lot of good people."

"So what else is new?" Apollo replied quietly. That seemed to be all they ever did these days, lose good people.

Dee tried to look on the bright side this time, "But if the _Enterprise_ can finish off the Basestar we might actually win this one.

"And how is that looking?"

"Hard to tell." She said, walking over to the DRADIS display. "We don't know a whole lot about shields or their weapons. They're both still there, and we haven't had any contact from the _Enterprise_. That's about all we know.

"New DRADIS contacts!" Someone called out. The commander and XO of the _Pegasus_ could already see them.

Two new ships had just come out of the nebula. "Are those what I think they are?" Dee asked.

"Only one ship we know looks like that." Lee said. Giant cubes. The Borg were back for more. The _Enterprise_ was fighting a Basestar on one side of the Battlestars, and the Borg were coming in from the other side. They were in a pincer.

"Load more nukes onto the transporter platform!" Dee ordered.

Word came back from the makeshift transporter room. The transporters couldn't get a lock on the inside of the cubes. The Borg had adapted to their strategy.

"Contact the _Enterprise_!" Lee ordered. They were the only ones who had experience with the Borg. Hopefully they'd know what to do.

"We're not getting any response, sir."

Just great, Lee thought. "Then get the Admiral!"

The elder Adama's voice filled the CIC. "We see them, Lee. We can't raise Picard's ship."

"Neither can we." The younger Adama responded, "Admiral, we need to get out of here."

"Not until those people are off the planet! We have to hold them off for a few minutes."

"How?"

"We'll try the missiles. Load your warheads back onto the missiles. Maybe some of them will be able to get through."

"But, Admiral,-"

"You have your orders!" The line went dead.

Lee just stood there for a moment. Then he let out an almost undetectable sigh. "You heard the Admiral. Prep the missiles."

People across CIC began moving and talking into phones. Dee approached her husband. She'd been preparing for this moment for hours, slipping things into the conversation, planting little suggestions, because she knew it might come to this. "Lee," she said quietly, "we have to leave."

"You heard our orders, Dee."

"Lee, frak our orders. We're talking about the survival of the human race. If the Old Man orders us to become extinct, I think we have a right to disagree."

"I can't leave him here." Lee replied, "and all those people still on New Caprica, my friends┘"

"They're my friends too, Lee, but they would tell you the same thing I am. There's no way we can stand up to those Borg ships. You know that as well as I do. The Admiral knows it too. He just refuses to see it. What do we gain if we stay here and die? We rescued a lot of people from the planet, enough to keep the human race alive. Isn't that our greatest duty?"

Lee thought about it for a moment. He had to admit. She had a point. Their first job had to be to keep the human race alive. He made a decision, the hardest one he'd ever made. "Spool up the FTLs, and start moving us away from the Borg. We're getting out of here."

"Lee!" Admiral Adama's voice came over the speaker again. "What the hell are you doing?"

"We have to get out of here, dad. We can't let the human race become extinct trying to save a handful of people from that gods forsaken rock!"

"Lee, don't do this. We can still-"

"No, dad, we can't. I'm getting the _Pegasus_ and everyone on her out of here. You know the best thing for us all would be for _Galactica_ to do the same." Then he severed the connection.

Dee smiled. She'd done it. They were going to live.

Daniel Jackson was standing in _Galactica's_ CIC, watching as the Admiral's final conversation with his son ended. "Admiral?" He asked after a moment.

"He's made his decision." Adama concluded. "And I've made mine." He turned to one of his officers, "continue transporting people off of the surface for as long as we can."

"_Pegasus_ is moving off." Someone called out. Adama cast his eyes to the floor. "On of the Borg ships is pursuing." The voice continued.

The Admiral looked up, "What?!"

"One of the Borg ships has broken off its approach and is moving toward _Pegasus_."

Adama looked at the DRADIS display. He could see it all playing out. His son's ship was moving away, and one of the Borg ships was moving toward it. "Get out of there, Lee." He said quietly.

In space, the Battlestar _Pegasus_ was moving slowly, preparing for its FTL jump. The Borg ship was faster. Beams lanced out from the giant cube, cutting deep into the armored hull of the Battlestar. It hit the power source for the FTL drive just as it was beginning to release an incredible amount of stored up energy for its trip. The result was an explosion bigger than anything yet seen that day, and the pieces of the ship that survived spun soundlessly away into the night, nothing living remained.

The only thing that the Admiral and his crew saw was the _Pegasus_' blip disappear from DRADIS. "Did they make it?" Daniel asked.

"Negative." Someone answered. "No FTL jump. They were destroyed."

Adama stared at the DRADIS screen for a moment, not willing to believe it. He willed his son's ship to reappear. He couldn't be dead. Not another son. Not Lee.

The Admiral fell to his knees. Daniel rushed to him. "Admiral Adama." He didn't respond. Daniel knelt down next to him. "Admiral, I know how terrible this is for you, but we have to do something, now."

Adama raised his eyes from the deck to look at Daniel. His expression was blank for a moment, as if he'd heard words coming from Jackson but had no idea what they meant. Then his head seemed to clear. He stood up slowly, Daniel holding his arm and helping him.

"You're right, Dr. Jackson." He turned to one of his officers, "set a course." He said. "Set a course for the nearest Borg vessel, best available speed." Everyone just stared at him for a moment. "DO IT!" He yelled. Confronted with his anger the crew jumped to attention. Better to die than face the Admiral's wrath.

Jackson was the only one to say anything, "Admiral, I know you want revenge for your son, but this isn't going to do anyone any good."

"It's not revenge, Dr. Jackson." Adama replied calmly, too calmly, Daniel thought, for a man who had just lost his son. "It's practicality. We can't beat them." Daniel nodded. "And we just saw what happens if we try to run." He motioned toward the DRADIS display. "We're going to die. But if we can take one of them with us, at least we won't have died without a fight."

Daniel wasn't particularly excited about the death part, but he had to admit that he couldn't see another way out. He walked to one of the walls and braced himself.

"One minute to contact." A voice announced and everyone in the CIC held their breath, preparing for the end.

The ship rocked hard, throwing everyone around, but they were still alive. "I thought you said one minute!" Adama called out. Not that it mattered much, but it had only been about seven seconds.

"That wasn't the Borg." Someone said. "It was the _Enterprise_."

"The _Enterprise_?!"

The starship _Enterprise_ had come about, its confrontation with the Cylon Basestar seemingly forgotten. And it had opened fire, not on the Borg ships but on _Galactica_. The first shot had been a glancing blow, as if someone was still getting used to using the phaser banks. The second shot was a direct hit, slicing through the hull of the Battlestar. Quantum torpedoes followed, impacting all along the port side of the colonial ship. Explosions tore Adama's ship apart. The final moments were not quite as spectacular as the demise of the _Pegasus_ but the net effect was essentially the same. Within seconds nothing was living as the scarred, burned, and melted remains floated away into nothingness.

The Replicators who now controlled the Federation's most powerful vessel picked over the remains of the android who had destroyed himself, taking several of their brethren with him. There wasn't much left to salvage. Some people, like the crew in main engineering and Samantha Carter had been killed by the Replicators directly, while other like Picard, Riker, and their bridge crew lay on the deck, asphyxiated.

On the planet several new Borg drones, two wearing the tattered remains of SGC patches, helped to complete the assimilation of the planet's remaining population. It was a shame that so many potential drones had been uselessly wasted in orbit, but the galaxy was teeming with the same potential, and not just this galaxy, but an infinite number of near-identical galaxies in different realities. It was a mission that would take an eternity, but time was not a problem. Somewhere the female triumvirate contemplated the task ahead of them as well as the successes behind them and they laughed still.

* * *

Written by Data laughing  
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888  
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227  
Thanks for reading Part 9. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review. 


	10. Chapter 10: Epilogue

We're Boned!  
Epilogue: What the hell was that? 

Picard slowly opened his eyes. His head was throbbing painfully. From the blackness behind his eyelids he transitioned to a blinding white. He quickly shut his eyes again. It was very bright out, and he wasn't entirely sure he was ready to face it. The Captain's memory was slightly fuzzy on where he was and how he had gotten there. He thought for a moment. He'd been on the _Enterprise_. That at least was a safe bet. He did spend most of his time there. Something had been happening. Something unpleasant. Once again, a safe bet, although not the most enlightening conclusion. He began to open his eyes again. If he was still on his ship someone had done some redecorating. The ground was white.

He looked around cautiously. Everything was white. No, wait, something appeared to be black┘ or at the very least not white. It took his eyes a moment to adjust. There was something lying on the ground several feet away. It was the shape of another person. Picard began to stand, but the sudden pain in every part of his body convinced him that maybe that was a little too much just then. Instead he crawled over to the other figure. He rolled the body over. It wasn't a uniform he recognized, but the face┘

Suddenly it all came flooding back, the ordeal he'd just been through, the people he'd met, oh, God, his ship. He recognized the face. It was Colonel Jack O'Neill of Stargate Command. The Colonel appeared to be breathing. Picard shook him. "Colonel wake up."

Jack moaned. He opened his eyes a bit, but shut them again quickly just as Picard had. "Why do I feel like I just got run over by a death glider?"

Picard didn't recognize the reference, but he decided to let it pass. "It will pass, Colonel." _Probably_, Picard didn't add. He was gradually feeling better, but it had by no means passed yet. "What do you remember?"

"Remember?" Jack asked, more to himself than Picard. He opened his eyes again, just enough to see who he was talking to. "Captain Picard?" Suddenly the memories seem to come flooding back, just as they had with Picard. It was a powerful enough experience to make Jack close his eyes again.

After a moment he asked a question of his own, "Where are we?"

"I don't know." Picard admitted. "I just awoke myself, in much the same condition as you."

Jack opened his eyes again. "It's white." He said.

"Yes, Colonel, it is."

"My team?" Jack asked.

"I don't know, Colonel." Picard looked all around. "As far as I can tell we're the only ones here." He glanced around again. "Where ever here is."

"I'm disappointed, Jean-Luc." A voice said.

Picard spun around. A familiar being had appeared sitting on a large throne.

Jack sat up to see past Picard. The pain in his head made him regret it almost immediately, but the sight of a smirking man on a golden throne with flowing black and red robes made up for it.

"Q!" Picard declared jumping to his feet. Suddenly all the strange events and coincidences made a lot of sense.

Jack looked more closely. "Simmons?"

"You remember me, Colonel? I'm flattered."

Picard ignored the exchange. "Q!" He said again. "You're responsible for all of this!"

"I will admit," Q said with a grin, "that I had a hand in directing events."

"Why?!" Picard demanded. "Torturing us for your own sick pleasure?" Picard realized that he really shouldn't be surprised, but enraged was a perfectly acceptable response.

"You should be thanking me, Jean-Luc."

"Thanking? For what? Killing my entire crew? Not to mention countless innocents?"

"For adding some excitement to your pathetic existence!" Q spat, his grin replaced in an instant by a sneer. "You and your crew, zipping around the galaxy, encountering alien race after alien race and problem after problem, and every time you win. Every challenger bested, every obstacle overcome, I've never seen a life so mind-numbingly boring!" He turned to Jack. "The same goes for you, Colonel! The four of you, as pathetic as you may seem overcome every obstacle. You're victorious at every turn. Your world is what gave me the idea, why I became Simmons, to test you. You share much in common with our heroic Captain here. So I found a universe with a problem that they could never be victorious against, and I nudged the both of you and your enemies to the same universe. Then I enjoyed the show. For once you both lost. So unexpected. So interesting!"

"That is enough, Q!" Picard said, the authority of a Captain in every syllable. "You've had your fun. It's over. Put things back to the way they were!"

"Over, my dear Jean-Luc? On the contrary, this is just beginning." With an ostentatious movement of his hand Picard and O'Neill vanished in a white flash of light.

* * *

Written, edited, directed, produced, and anything else you can name by Data laughing. It's all about me, baby!  
Thanks for reading. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review.

So, sequal? I'm taking suggestions for other sci-fi franchises to cross over.


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